


A Light At Each End Of The Tunnel

by JudgeCoffee



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gaslighting, Gunplay, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prequel, Prostitution, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Polyamory, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2020-07-18 01:28:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19966477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudgeCoffee/pseuds/JudgeCoffee
Summary: It was 1878 when Dutch and Hosea first met...





	1. The Latest Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, this is a slow burn and there will be a lot of tags that get added as it gets more explicit. For those that know my writing, I like my violence graphic, my sex vivid, and my fics long as hell. 
> 
> This one is not going to be pretty, and I've added some starters for what I know will be a feature, but there's a high likelihood based on what I have planned out that more is going to show up as things progress, and these will also not be the only relationships that make an appearance here. I'm going to be sticking to a lot of the themes of the games, but as this is a prequel-fic I'm also going to be taking a lot of liberties.
> 
> If I miss something or you ever want to talk with me, I try to be very approachable! You can comment here, find me on tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or over on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee. As I'm still finishing off my last Overwatch fic, the first few here might be a little slow, but I'll try and update at least once a month in the meantime.

_-1878-_

Dutch knew that jealousy was beneath him.

It wasn’t a religious matter, that had never been his particular calling. A church just seemed to be another kind of prison. Another group of people telling him what to do and what to think. He understood the principals of deadly sins, though. His mother had ensured he had a proper education; he was not an uncultured man. He understood the wisdom behind being absent envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath, lust and pride. He _knew_ that an effort to abstain from those emotions and devotion to _only_ a cause would offer a certain level of clarity, and hell, Hosea had even preached that on occasion.

To think Hosea had wanted to be a priest once. Dutch supposed the man’s sins had gotten in the way, just like they were getting in the way for Dutch.

 _The problem, yes, the real problem, is less an existence of the emotion and more giving into it_. The problem remained, in Dutch’s case, that he was furiously, deeply and _passionately_ jealous of Hosea’s infatuation with Bessie.

 _And it is_ beneath _me_.

What was worse was that he knew why Hosea liked Bessie. The two had the comparable charm of merchants and conmen, which had always been to Dutch's mind a near identical occupations. She was the local shopkeeper’s daughter in one of the bigger towns they’d come across, called Nightingale, and she had all the wit and charisma that Hosea seemed the type to crave. 

As for Nightingale the town, well, the two of them may as well have wandered into a fairy tale. It was near idyllic, wildflowers dotting every inch of the horizon, with fresh buildings sprouting up all over, covered by new paint and clean wood. There was an influx of farmers that were beginning to make their home in the area; a fresh colony near enough to civilization that their problems were few and far between. The jail had no prisoners, and the law was down to the Sheriff and one part time Deputy who also owned the stable. Hosea and Dutch couldn’t have met friendlier people, or more trusting ones. It was a town of fresh faces and budding development. The easiest possible mark for two outlaws passing through on their way to wilder country.

When Dutch and Hosea had first arrived, they’d intended to case the general store, see what was worth stealing, but of course Hosea had seen a beautiful girl struggling to reach a package of sugar on the top shelf, and offered his assistance. He was, after all, a gentleman. Or would be until they'd absconded with as much money as they could carry.

“Miss, please, allow me to help.” Hosea had said, offering her his hand, with that sparkle in his eye that Dutch knew meant he was ready to charm the sky into giving him the stars. “I couldn’t live with myself if I saw you fall from such a height.”

She’d smiled, flicking her golden curls over her shoulder as she balanced on the shelf. “Sir, if you find yourself grieving over every single girl you see who cannot reach some sugar, I’m afraid you’re going to die of a broken heart well before your time. But I’ll tell you this, if I fall you have my permission to catch me and chide me for being a fool.”

“Oh, now if you fell, I’m afraid I’d be too awestruck by your eyes to do much of anything.” Hosea said, and Dutch was well aware that coming from anyone else, no woman in her right mind would have bought into that nonsense.

Hosea was different, his voice absolutely sincere, his hand extended in case she needed it, his words carrying a promise that even Dutch believed would be true.

Whether Bessie actually lost her footing, or wanted to measure Hosea’s promise, Dutch actually wasn’t sure, but once she got the sugar she did fall, and Hosea did catch her. And true to his word, he didn’t say anything, just stared into her eyes while she stared back into his, and Dutch was helpless to do much more than watch from his corner.

Which of them had played the other was in the wind, and Dutch had a feeling in his gut right at that moment that he had never experienced before. A twisting snake deep inside that made his fingers twitch towards his guns. He didn't make the move, but he did know in that moment that he wanted them to stop touching each other.

He cleared his throat, after the two held their position for longer than anyone could call proper; Bessie with her sugar pressed against her chest, and Hosea with her cradled against his. “Hold her like that any longer, Mr. _Carmichael_ , and you may have to start asking for her hand in marriage.”

Hosea caught himself and shook his head, setting Bessie back on her feet. “I may, I may. If I call on you for some other assistance in this fine store, Miss…?”

“Elizabeth Smith, but please, all my friends call me Bessie.”

“Are we friends, Miss Bessie?” Hosea asked, holding his hands out to take the sugar from her.

“I’m not certain yet, Mr… Carmichael was it?” Bessie asked, handing him the sugar, their hands touching, and Hosea's long fingers tracing over her delicate ones.

“Hosea, please.” Hosea said, carrying the package to the store’s counter for her. “All of my friends call me Hosea. And I should like to be friends, Miss Bessie.”

Dutch had tried not to over think it. He'd seen Hosea charm women before, it was nothing outside the ordinary. Hosea had, after all, stolen her necklace while he was holding her. Dutch's concerns had come back with a vengeance when, rather than fencing it, Hosea had used it as a reason to call on Bessie again to return it.

More concerning when Hosea had _then_ asked Dutch to try and avoid causing any problems in Nightingale.

“If you wouldn’t mind. Nothing overt, is all I’m asking for. Just not right this very moment.” Hosea had said, all prim and proper like he so often was. “We need to lay low after Ohio as is. Surely we can manage some honest bounty hunter work or something along those lines.”

“Honest work.” Dutch had said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“For now.” Hosea had answered.

One month in, and they were _still_ performing ‘honest work’, and Dutch was beginning to have more than enough of it. The town was too big, the people too plentiful, and the rules too constricting. _Society_ , in all its glory. The laborious serfs going about their business day to day was infuriating to watch, and the idea of blending in with them for an extended period of time was almost as beneath him as the intense jealousy he felt every time Hosea went to dine with Bessie.

 _There is_ nothing _to be jealous of, you fool_. Dutch thought, and not for the first time, hoping it would banish the twisting snake in his guts that felt like it was eating its way out of him.

It wasn’t the same situation as when _he_ had met Hosea, no, nothing would ever match that.

That had been a pleasant evening in Pennsylvania, where the two of them had met on the road, struck up a civil conversation. Hosea was like that, personable, and like any good conman he could talk an alligator into giving over his teeth.

“A fine evening for an adventure,” Hosea had laughed, throwing his head back and smiling. “You wouldn’t mind sharing the road with me, would you son? You never know who you could meet out here, and two is safer than one for camping.”

Hosea had been so handsome, even then when he was a little too skinny for his own good. He’d still been dressed like a gentleman, with his golden hair slicked back and his face clean shaven, with boots that may have been a little worn out, but they had been nice once. He had a gun, but it hadn’t looked like he’d used it in some time on account of the poor maintenance. Straight backed, wiry, and a smile like nothing Dutch had ever seen. Even his horse had looked like him, tall and lean, but a durable appaloosa. They'd even had similar personalities, as the horse was friendly enough that Dutch couldn't believe no one had stolen him (which of course was how Hosea had obtained him in the first place).

Dutch had grinned like an idiot, so sure that he had found an easy score, and someone easy on the eyes as well. “Why, my good sir, I would be _happy_ to share the road and conversation with you.” And they had talked for hours before they’d finally found a place to rest. Hosea was a master of small talk, and could easily make conversation out of the weather lately, the state of the roads in the area, the lack of a decent tailor in any of the local towns, and tall tales about roving bandits that made travel oh so _very_ dangerous alone.

Dutch found that funny at the time, and funnier in hindsight.

When they finally stopped, they’d stayed up later than likely either of them had intended to, passing back and forth a bottle of whiskey that they both sipped at… but the bottle never seemed to get very empty. Dutch hadn’t even noticed; he’d been so caught up in what Hosea talked about. He transitioned beautifully into fanciful stories of being a stage actor, out of work and down on his luck.

“Ah, but there are big cities here. Plenty of places for a man like me to find his true calling.” Hosea had smiled, tipping back the bottle to drink, and not drinking. Dutch should have known. “And what is America, if not a place to find out who you really are? That’s what all this is about, my young friend.”

“Finding out who we really are…” Dutch had nodded, tucking that away in the back of his mind. “I like that. My father, he fought for the Union, and he believed in the freedom of all men. That truly, we are all equals. That every man, woman and child should be able to find opportunity here, in this fine country. And _I_ believe that. I truly do.” He struck up a cigarette he'd rolled, letting the taste of the tobacco linger on his tongue.

“He sounds like quite the philosopher. A man after my own heart.” Hosea said, flashing those pearly white teeth of his. Dutch had never seen a man with teeth quite so clean. “What did he find for himself after the war?”

“Nowhere, I’m afraid. He died, far away from home.” Dutch said, far too honest. Often times with lies making some of it true made it easier to keep track of who had been told what, or so Dutch had found. Inconsequential details were easier. “I wonder often what kind of man he would be now. What he would think of the choices I’ve made.” He offered Hosea his cigarette, which the other man accepted.

“Well, probably not much of camping out with foolish stage actors in the back waters of Pennsylvania.” Hosea chuckled, putting the cigarette to his lips. “Know what got me fired? Couldn’t remember my own lines.” He laughed, waving the cigarette around. “An actor who can’t remember their lines. Can you imagine? I suppose improvisation is more my forte.”

“Improvisation.” Dutch nodded, accepting the cigarette as Hosea handed it back. “Now that is a different skill altogether. Improvisation. Adaptability. That… that is fascinating.”

“And it’s not a comedy act.” Hosea chuckled, standing up. “Hang on, I’ve got to piss.”

Dutch had taken that opportunity to steal everything Hosea left in the camp and he’d left immediately, with an odd twinge of regret he hadn’t expected. He’d liked the man, he realized, and if he hadn’t been desperate for money, he may not have even robbed him. He didn't like taking from someone as down on their luck as he was, and Hosea had less than he did.

About half an hour later, when he’d gone for an apple for his horse, he realized that Hosea had taken every scrap of food in his saddle bag and all the money from his pockets. Dutch still didn’t know how or when he’d managed, and Hosea had never shown him.

Dutch had turned around and gone back, guns drawn and ready to kill the man who’d stolen from him… only to find Hosea waiting just where Dutch had left him, still laughing over what had transpired between them.

“Well, I suppose you could shoot me young man, I did get the better end of the deal,” Hosea gestured to the fire beside him. “That being said, I’d prefer it if you’d sit with me. I’m a man who’d rather hear a good story about someone who can steal from a thief, as opposed to having a shootout with him.”

So, they sat and talked for the rest of the night.

“The thing you have to realize,” Dutch said, two hours later, then on his second bottle of whiskey, “is that it isn’t _just_ about having money, or stealing money from the less fortunate-”

“I had even less money in my pockets than you did, and none of the food. So it seems to me that we’re both mighty fools.” Hosea said, finishing his second bottle of whiskey.

“Ah, well, necessity breeds a certain level of desperation,” Dutch snorted. “But what I see for the future… I want to start something different. Not just greedy men taking from those with even less than they have. There are people out there who strip away a man’s dignity, like in the South before the war. Like the damned Kings across the ocean taking from serfs. There was meant to be an end to that in America, but it was just the beginning. Corruption is everywhere. And once I find my footing… well, I aim to put an end to that. To help raise people up to something better. To look these government scum and industrialists right in the eye, and spit in it.”

Hosea smiled, looking into the fire. “That’s a mighty goal, for someone who was robbed by an out of work stage actor.”

“Well, to that I say this: Better to be an out of work stage actor than an indentured slave. The world was ugly, still is… but I think there’s a way to move forward. To find freedom out here. Maybe I’m not much, but I have hope. Call me the eternal optimist.” Dutch said, lighting another cigarette, a little less elegant from the first one he'd rolled. “I don’t think I could carry on in this world if I didn’t have something I could believe in. I just need to figure out a plan on where to start.”

Hosea rubbed his chin, and Dutch realized the strangest thing. Hosea had been listening to him. For the first time, someone had _listened_ , in a way neither his mother nor anyone back home ever had. “What do they call you, kid? Your real name, not whatever you told me when we met.”

“Dutch, Dutch van der Linde.”

“Hosea Matthews.” Hosea said, tipping his hat. “What do you say we make our one-man shows into a duel act? You robbed me, but you didn’t try to kill me, I robbed you, didn’t try to kill you… I think we have a compatible agenda. What do you think?”

“Ah, sir, I think you are too kind to me. But I would like that very much.”

Hosea _listened_.

“Well, in that case, I’m just passing through here on my way to Ohio. Lots of suckers in Ohio, Dutch. And it’s hard to convince people you’re truthful when you don’t have anyone to back you up… but two people… I think with two, we could find some real money.” Hosea chuckled, taking the cigarette again as Dutch offered it to him. “Fund this little revolution of yours.”

They’d had their first job in Kettering, Ohio. They’d been arrested, of course – the curse of over-confidence, Dutch would say. But they’d also broken out of jail and been able to take the three hundred dollars they’d stolen with them.

Since then, they’d been inseparable. The perfect pair. Except for one. Little. Thing.

“I’ll be back later this evening, Dutch.” Hosea said, slicking back his hair in the mirror and recalling Dutch to his present situation in civilization.

Hosea didn’t dress shabbily anymore. He had a smart vest, good boots – that Dutch had stolen from him, admittedly, but they were still good boots – and even a fancy gold pocket watch – that Hosea had stolen completely of his own volition – and his hair had the fresh shine of a healthy man. A healthy man who was running out of money, because while their work was honest, both of them considered most ‘honest’ to be a fate worse than death.

“Let me hazard a guess,” Dutch said, shaking out the newspaper he’d been pretending to read. “You and Bessie are going to take a little stroll around the lake, while I wait here like a good citizen of Nightingale, and lay low, and don’t remind you that we are beginning to have a bit of an issue with _money_.”

Money, he found, was a completely reasonable excuse to be annoyed with their present situation.

“Well, how much do we have left?” Hosea asked, taking pause as he made sure his hair was sorted just right. As though his hair did not _always_ look just right, even when Dutch had first met him.

Dutch had even taken some ideas from him, styling his own hair to be more slicked back as opposed to running wild. It allowed for some… sophistication, he thought. No one would listen to him if he had the appearance of some boorish train riding hobo.

He supposed Hosea had rubbed off on him a bit.

“Ten dollars, and if we’re going to keep up with this fine living of ours, I think we may need to consider that ‘good honest work’ is not going to keep us in our current situation.” Dutch said, gesturing to the room around them.

They’d been staying at the only hotel in the town, which to Dutch’s mind was over-priced and well worth robbing once they were ready to leave, but had also been dining regularly, and Hosea had purchased several expensive gifts for Bessie through her father’s own catalogue.

Dutch had managed to catch one ne’re-do-well for an easy bounty – the fool had killed some settlers in the area, and had been easily tempted to brag about it in the saloon not one town over. But that hadn’t been much money to live on for a month, and it was not as though he and Hosea had become accustomed to being frugal, per say.

Hosea frowned deeply, stroking his chin and mulling over. He didn’t say anything, and Dutch didn’t much care for that. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate that Hosea was a man who thought things through; it was that the answer was immediately obvious.

Dutch folded the paper shut, smoothing it over. “Hosea, if for once in my life I may offer the voice of reason in our current situation, if you are not planning on robbing that girl’s father blind, how long do you intend to let her believe that you are… what?”

Hosea sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, investment bankers down from New York was the line I used. On our way to Chicago, but we’d stopped to take in the countryside.”

“Heh, and she believed that? What investment bankers stop in a town like this, Hosea?” Dutch gestured out the window. It wasn’t that Nightingale was the smallest town they’d been to, not by a long shot, but it was hardly the place he would have picked that particular line.

“You’re underestimating me, Dutch.” Hosea smiled weakly, but he still had a look in his eye that Dutch didn’t like. Or maybe it was the _lack_ of a look in his eye. There was none of the spark that Hosea usually exuded when he was spinning a story. “I can think of half a dozen reasons why some bankers would be here. This right here is a fairly nice hotel, there’s a decent saloon, there are good farms, a fine lake… and there’re pharmaceutical companies, all up in the larger cities, could look to expand a factory, or store houses… plenty of reasons to move money around, and plenty that sound legitimate enough that it would be easy to sell. You should know, some of it is in that paper you’ve been reading.”

“Fine, so let’s take into consideration that we are investment bankers surveying this area as a potential spot for expansion and looking for interested parties who would bid for our bank's loan.” Dutch waved his hand, then took a pack of cigarettes off the desk. “And so, the general store I would say would be one of our usual marks. This hotel is another, and-”

“Not the general store, Dutch.” Hosea said, and a little too fast.

Bessie.

 _Jealousy_ , he thought again, _is beneath you, Dutch van der Linde_.

Yet he couldn’t get the sight of Hosea’s smile when he saw that woman out of his head. The way his lips curled that made him positively glow, and the way his hands had brushed her skin. Dutch could picture him touching her hand, his fingers across her cheek, letting her lips touch his… it wasn’t something that Dutch had previously considered a risk.

He had a vivid imagination. Too vivid. He could see Hosea smelling her hair, behind a tree by the lake, where her father wasn’t likely to find them. Where Dutch wouldn’t be able to see them. He could even think of what Hosea might say, and how he might charm her. He knew poetry. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” and the like.

“What, pray tell, Hosea, are you trying to do here? What is _your_ plan?” Dutch asked, his knuckles going white on the arms of his chair. “What do you intend to do with Bessie? Settle down? Marry her? Take over her father’s store, maybe? She has no brothers, from what you’ve told me. You can become a well to do citizen!” He stood up, knowing he could snap the arm off the chair if he kept touching it.

He’d forgotten to light his cigarette.

“Dutch,” Hosea said, crossing his arms and squaring himself off. “You are beginning to yell and the walls here are _thin_.”

“Oh, yes, I had noticed that, thank you for reminding me.” Dutch said, striking a match, his voice cracking slightly as he pulled himself back. Forced himself to relax. Trying not to be quite such a sarcastic ass, or let his sour petty _jealousy_ ruin his attempt to make Hosea see sense. “I would, that aside, like an answer. If you intend to stay and make some life with a shopkeeper’s daughter, I need to know about it.”

“I…” Hosea rubbed his face, leaning against the wall. “I’m not that kind of man, Dutch. I’ve never made an honest dollar in my life.”

“And yet here, you’ve asked me to make _you_ an honest dollar, against everything that you know _I_ believe,” Dutch said, waving his cigarette accusingly, “and I have done it for you. Because I am your friend and your partner. And you ought to know that there is nothing I would not do for you.”

“I know, Dutch. I know.” Hosea said, putting his hand on Dutch’s shoulder and squeezing gently, temporarily filling Dutch’s heart with surety and warmth, pulling him once again from being too dangerously in his own head. “Can’t think of a single person in my life who’s been as loyal to me as you have. Including my own father, believe it or not. Imagine that.” He stared out the window, his eyes clouding over. “It’s just… something about her.”

And then all the surety was gone, and Dutch had another image in his head. His hands around Bessie’s throat and just squeezing until he felt her windpipe crunch under his weight.

 _Jealousy_. He hated the thought, and he hated that it’s jammed into his brain like a railroad spike, because he couldn’t unsee it, and he couldn’t get the taste of wanting Bessie dead out of his mouth. He needed to stop picturing Hosea holding her against his chest. Imagining him playing with her hair. Imagining his hand up her skirt.

It was not as though they hadn’t visited saloons and charmed women. It was not as though he hadn’t seen women sitting on Hosea’s lap, or for that matter, seen Hosea’s hand up _other_ women’s skirts. But they had meant as much to Hosea as Hosea had meant to them, and about as much as Dutch had meant to the women he’d known. It was frivolous. It was fun. They didn’t love each other.

They weren’t going to take Hosea away from him.

Denying that possibility was not going to prevent it, but the poisonous thought in Dutch’s head was _not_ going to come to fruition. He was not a cold-blooded killer, or some lost pathetic little boy who would declare that if he could not have Hosea, no one could. It was not the sort of man he was, and not the sort of man Hosea would ever forgive.

But the thought was there.

“I know you would do anything; I know. And I would do anything for you, Dutch. I need you to know that I would.” Hosea said, pacing back and forth. “You’re right. I’ve asked a lot of you… too much, to indulge a foolish vision. A whim. And that ain’t fair, nor considerate of me.”

It was what Dutch wanted to hear, but he wasn’t sure he believed it.

“You’re right, it is not, and I appreciate you saying as much.” Dutch said, waving his cigarette errantly out the window. “We need to leave this place, Hosea. Get back on the road, where you and I belong. Look at us,” he gestured at their suits and the room around them, “this is not _us_. This is a cage that we’ve let ourselves be lured into. _She_ is a cage.”

Dutch could tell the instant the last words left his mouth that he’d made a mistake. Hosea was tightly controlled enough that it wasn’t immediately obvious, to those who didn’t know him anyway, but his lips twisted into a displeased frown. Not contemplative. Displeased.

“You have big ideas, Dutch. Bigger ideas than I ever would have come to on my own.” Hosea said, checking his hair in the mirror again. His movements were rigid though, full of contained anger. “You say you reject society at every turn, that it’s a cage, but here you are, in this hotel, wearing these fine clothes, reading your newspaper like every other sad sack in this town.”

For a moment, just a moment, Dutch saw red. He didn't know when he moved directly into Hosea’s face, his nose barely an inch from the other man’s, but he was there, and he was seconds away from grabbing the other man’s lapels and hanging him out the window. He could. He was younger, but he was bigger, and thicker than wiry Hosea.

Hosea didn’t back down, just glared at Dutch, almost daring him to do exactly what Dutch was thinking about doing. “You’re also smart. Too smart for your own good. But you’re young, and you ain’t been doing this as long as I have. You preach all your ideas like you ought to stand in front of a congregation, but I haven’t seen you put that money where your mouth is for a while now. You and I are free as we like, but your grand America is nowhere that I’ve seen. You have my back, and I have yours, and that’s as far as this thing has gone. But this life…” He shook his head. “Maybe sometimes I like to live in a fantasy where I haven’t done all the terrible things I’ve done so that I can keep doing whatever I want however I want to. You have your dream of a better world, but I’m a selfish bastard, and my dreams are smaller. Sometimes I like the idea of seeing what a good man might actually look like. What a real family might actually look like. So, spare me a moment to dream a little on my own terms.”

He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, leaving Dutch to fume.

And Dutch did just that, pacing back and forth. He considered breaking something. Throwing something across the room, so that he would feel better. But it was beneath him. All the rage, the jealousy; he had to bury that down deep, because Hosea was right.

Selfish, that was what he had been. He had let himself be distracted by fine clothes, and living free with Hosea, just as Hosea had let himself be distracted by Bessie.

 _What a real family might actually look like_. As though Dutch and Hosea had not become closer than family.

Dutch stopped pacing and lightly unfolded his hands on the dresser, looking at his reflection. He reached up, smoothing his fingers over his chin, checking for the fading redness that the rage had welled up in him, and forcing it down. Strangling it in place of the woman who was intruding on his thoughts. There was no point in focusing on her, there was nothing he could do about _her_.

“A real family…” That was one issue raised. The second was somewhat easier to fulfill. Hosea thought he hadn’t done enough to match his earlier promises. That made Dutch smile, smoothing back his hair the same way he had seen Hosea do it earlier. He closed his eyes briefly, imaging Hosea doing his hair for him, touching Dutch’s scalp the same way the bath girls sometimes did. Massaging down his neck. His shoulders. His chest. _His_ , not hers.

“Well, then. If Hosea thinks I haven’t given anything back, I suppose it’s time to change things around.” The other man had made a point. He’d indulged too much in his own flimsy whims. He had set out to do something, and it was time to start doing it.

And it was time to leave town, whether Hosea wanted to or not.


	2. The Dutch Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys welcome back! This chapter contains some internalized-homophobic thoughts just as a heads up, and also a copious amount of me making wild assumptions about Bessie.

**Chapter Two: The Dutch Problem**

Hosea knew he had a Dutch van der Linde shaped problem that was going to have to be sorted out, though the question of how was alluding him. Not that long ago he would have said the easiest way to deal with a problematic partner in crime was as simple as a bullet to the back of the head. It was not ultimately too messy, and it saved a lot of time. He'd done it before, when someone wanted more than their share of a take or went too far past what Hosea was comfortable with doing - or, alternatively, wasn't willing to go far enough. It was the nature of the business, and Hosea had no interest in loose ends. Loose ends were what got people killed in his line of work, and he'd been doing it long enough to know when a slit throat in the middle of the night was the most direct solution to an unsavory partner.

Which was why the Dutch shaped issue bothered him so much, because all things being equal, he liked Dutch too much to consider what blowing a hole in the back of his skull would feel like, and what he'd be going back to if he did.

Before Dutch – less than a damn year before Dutch - Hosea had looked over his shoulder in every town, and had nightmares of just how desperate he'd gotten. He'd frequently wake up in a cold sweat whether he was sleeping indoors or out, the slightest noise prompting him to draw his gun. He had always thought of himself as a man who would do anything to anyone if it meant he didn't have to do an honest day’s work. His mother and grandfather had worked themselves to death being honest, while his father had skipped from town to town doing as he liked without a single care in the world. No rule had ever applied to the man, and when he'd died the will he'd left behind had nothing in it except debt and a note that if his children had any sense, they'd never let anyone tell them right from wrong and do whatever made them happy.

Hosea hadn't lied to Dutch about being a stage actor; he had started that way with a traveling troupe doing stand up comedy, and ended in New York without a penny to his name. He’d never been all that funny.

So, after his disastrous failure in dramatic acting, he shoved his director down a flight of stairs, took the money he ought to have been owed, and left New York. And he'd started a different kind of acting.

That had all been fine and good for a while; a little lonely, so he'd found a few partners to work with. Bandits and thieves, most of them, but it had helped for a while.

Then Dutch.

He hadn't planned on staying with Dutch, was the thing. The night they'd met, once he realized Dutch had taken his money, he'd intended to run. Dutch was younger, not as tall as he was, but he was bigger, and there was a look in his eye… Hosea had met killers before. Real dangerous types that he knew from reputation were better off avoided. Enforcers from bigger gangs, or vicious old soldiers who were rumored to have taken up scalping as a pastime. When Dutch had come back to the camp that night, Hosea saw that in him. That dangerous edge that made him wonder what Dutch might do if he were pushed too far in the wrong direction.

Not that, on the balance of things, Dutch had ever actually  _ done  _ anything along those lines. He was the sharpest gunslinger Hosea had ever met, with an eye that made it seem like his guns could have very well been built into his body, but Hosea had never seen him kill someone without a reason for it.

Still, sometimes Hosea just had a feeling. The way Dutch looked at people who made him angry, really angry, made Hosea think that he wouldn't limit himself to killing them. That there was something ugly under all his pretty words; uglier than Hosea killing a partner or shooting some poor bastard guarding a stagecoach.

Hosea worried that he might have seen Dutch look at Bessie that way. Then again, it could have just been Hosea's imagination. Maybe he  _ wanted _ Dutch to look at Bessie that way because that meant that it wasn’t Hosea he was frustrated with. So maybe he'd found himself thinking of Dutch in a different way than he thought about other people. About lesser men.

And Hosea did not think of himself as a lesser man, generally speaking. He was good at what he did; no one could catch him in a lie except Bessie, and he more often had the upper hand in his business than he didn't. He was a survivor, a conman, and an outlaw. Maybe not the greatest gunman who ever lived, but he got the job done. He knew when to shoot first and ask questions later, and when it was a good idea to ask the questions. It didn't make him any less afraid of those who might want revenge against him - he only had enemies left.

It wasn't until he met Dutch that he realized what he'd been missing, and maybe it had been the same for Dutch in some ways. Before Dutch, Hosea's scores had been small, and he'd settled for partners who could maybe string a sentence together long enough to rob someone, but Dutch wasn't like any of them. Dutch wasn't like  _ anyone _ .

When Dutch and Hosea spun a tale, no one could rightly say it wasn't true. They kept their stories straight, they had answers for everything, and with one minor setback at the outset of their partnership, no one had managed to arrest them.

Hosea knew he wasn't a fool who was easily lured in by bullshit, but he was starting to find himself agreeing with Dutch's philosophy of things. Under that dangerous look, Hosea believed that Dutch believed everything he said. Maybe that was why he’d been snippy with him, and maybe a little unfairly so. Dutch usually gave away half of what they stole to orphans and homeless folk he met in the street. Hosea found the enterprise fascinating.

He’d done what he wanted his whole life because it was just what he wanted, and who was the law to say they knew better than him? But Dutch was more than "doing what he liked". The way Dutch talked was more like Robin Hood.

Since Hosea had known him, they'd never taken from anyone who had less, only those who had more, and what was even better was how successful they'd been. Less than a year he'd known Dutch, and he'd had more money and felt better getting up each morning than he ever had in the ten years he’d done it alone.

He felt  _ alive _ .

Taking money from a rich man was just more satisfying, and taking it without needing to fire a single shot was euphoric. He'd always preferred talking his way out anyway, but with Dutch it could be done with almost complete surety. They'd created false gold claims, investment schemes, blackmail some unsavory types, and sold quite a few properties that didn't belong to them in the first place.

They'd stayed up drinking all night under the stars, they'd dined at some of the finest saloons in the tiniest slivers of civilization, and they'd hunted quietly in the bush for weeks while they waited for their latest caper to blow over.

Hosea hadn't spent that much time with a single person since he'd left home. He didn't think he'd ever talked to  _ anyone  _ so much without running out of things to talk about.

The biggest portion of his Dutch shaped problem was that Dutch mattered to him. He mattered too much.

"Think I'd like to go further West, after this." Dutch had said, right before they'd come to Nightingale, laying under the stars in the fresh open air, with the night sky open above them. Hosea felt like he could see heaven from out there. "Not Chicago. Too big, too much noise. I think I could really get more thinking done out in some real wild country."

"Lots of desert out West, Dutch. And lots of Indians who won't want us there, especially after everything that's gone on lately."

"Hah, I'd like to meet some." Dutch said, staring up at the open sky. "I think they'd understand more. They live the way we're  _ supposed  _ to live. We're the ones taking everything great about this country and dashing it against the rocks."

"Oh, I'm certain they'll appreciate your approval of their way of life." Hosea rolled his eyes. "In fact, I bet they'd strive for your good graces and make you the King of America."

"Now, you know that is not what I meant and I do not appreciate you dismissing it off hand like that." Dutch scoffed. "If any of those that had come here seeking freedom had followed their example, then America would be everything that everyone says it should be."

"That's rather over romanticizing things, Dutch." Hosea said, though he wasn't all that surprised. Dutch romanticized everything. "But if we meet any out there, be sure to tell them how you feel while I watch from a safe distance."

"Hah, come on now Hosea…" Dutch turned over on his bedroll, eyes sparkling with that glint of promise as he reached out and patted Hosea’s thigh affectionately. "I know you'd never let anything happen to me."

That, right there, that made up the rest of the problem. Because that look and those words made Hosea feel something that he should not feel, and that Bessie made him feel very similarly was making it all the more glaring. The way his heart beat faster when Dutch touched him and the butterflies in his stomach when Dutch said he trusted him wasn't the kind of thing one man should feel for another.

"You seem a thousand miles off today, Mr. Carmichael," Bessie said from her place at his side, her arm wrapped around his as he escorted her around the lake for their afternoon walk.

How could he even begin an approximate telling of the situation to Bessie?

“Ah, yes, forgive me. But really, you must call me Hosea if I’m to call you Bessie,” Hosea said, patting Bessie’s hand lightly. He wondered, and not for the first time, if she had figured him out yet. If she knew how much of his act was a lie. He didn’t have the rough hands of a farmer, but she’d felt them often enough to know they were probably rougher than a banker’s should have been. Right around the trigger finger.

It was the easiest way to tell.

“Fine, Hosea, then. You do still seem to be a thousand miles away from me,” Bessie said, lightly slapping his hand. She giggled, tucking her hair behind her ear, the sun practically glittering off her smile. Christ, he couldn’t get enough of looking at her. Of hearing her laugh.

And then he thought about Dutch and his grand ideas and he was right back where he started.

“It’s… ah, a bit of a strange situation I’m in, is all,” Hosea said, looking past her to the quaint shoreline of the lake. ‘The Spiders’ they called it, on account of the eight streams that ran off it, or so Bessie told him. Hosea had no idea if she was having a go at him, because he’d only seen the one stream so far, and they’d been walking there for about a month. “Would you believe I was a bit of a loner before recently?”

“Investment banking is a solitary business then?” Bessie asked, innocently enough, but Hosea caught the edge of a grin on her lips when she mentioned banking. She couldn't possibly believe him, but she'd yet to call his bluff.

“Believe it or not, for the most part yes,” Hosea said, politely nodding at a couple that walked past them.

It was hard not to check the state of the man’s shoes. Her jewelry. What his hat was made of. Whether or not she had a ring. He could size up how much a person was worth, and whether or not there was a point in robbing them. The two who passed them? Just barely, but he bet they had some decent pocket change.

“In my line of work you, ah, buy, you sell, you do a lot of talking. Most of the time it’s just you and someone else in a room hashing things out,” Hosea said, not entirely lying. It was easier when what you said wasn’t entirely a lie, and he was acting as his very own spider web when it came to Bessie.

That was the problem with long cons. Keeping the story straight.

“And now you have Mr. Chambers,” Bessie said, using the name Dutch had been going by. “Why is that? Got a little lonesome on the road?” She brushed her golden curls back behind her ear again, as the wind caught them. “I could understand that. Going from town to town, not knowing anybody, never being sure if it’s a friendly face waiting for you…” Her hand tightened on his arm briefly. “Is that why you took him on? As… what, an apprentice, maybe?”

“Heh, in some ways I suppose. But I’d say I’ve learned plenty from him,” Hosea said wistfully. “He’s a bit of an optimist compared to me, really. I think I’d maybe… stopped believing in people, until I met him. And now I’ve met you. And I suppose I’m a little conflicted about what I should do next, when normally I find things very clear.”

“Hm,” Bessie said, reaching up and touching her chin, smiling a little just at the edge of her lips, making Hosea fairly certain she was making fun of him. “What would you meeting me have to do with business, I wonder?”

“Very funny,” Hosea said, taking her hand from her chin and kissing her cheek softly. Chastely. The way he’d kiss a rich mark, most of the time, when he wanted to charm them. And just like with them, he wanted more from her. Just, well, something other his usual.

Dutch was making him sentimental. And maybe that was all it was. He was spending too much time with Dutch.

“ _ What, pray tell, is your plan _ ?” Dutch had asked him.

There was no plan. There was a fantasy.  _ No, worse, there are two fantasies _ . In one, it was exactly what Dutch had opined for him. Marrying Bessie. Settling down. Nightingale wasn’t such a bad town, all things considered. He might not get bored.

Maybe he could be honest.

Maybe.

Then there was the second, ultimately more realistic fantasy, where he and Dutch took the town for everything they had and rode off into the sunset. Then they would hit the next town. Then the one after that. Sleeping under the stars.

Maybe sharing the same tent for warmth. Maybe…

_ Maybe you should stop fantasizing about things that won’t happen. _ He had been alone with Dutch too long.

Bessie pulled back from the kiss, taking Hosea’s hands softly in hers. “You listen to me on this, Hosea. We ain’t known each other long, but I don’t want to be no one’s excuse and no one’s regret. So don’t you talk circles around it, because I know you’ll do that all day. What is it that’s making you so worried? Some choice you have to make between me and him?”

Hosea couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t wrong.

“Not so much you as Mr. Chambers. He thinks we’ve stayed here too long without getting any business done, and I suppose on the one hand I’m inclined to agree. On the other…” He took her hands in his, shrugging. “Well, on the other I care for you, Bessie. If there was any doubt on that front.”

“Am I to believe then that this little town you stopped over in is too small for you to do any business in, and you’re staying because of me?” Bessie asked, incredulous as always when he started to talk about his ‘work’. Maybe Dutch had been right about investment banking being the wrong angle. “That don’t make a lick of sense, Hosea, unless you’ve got someplace else to be. In which case you ought to tell me that and be on your way with Mr. Chambers. Unless Mr. Chambers wants to do business here, which you could, being investment bankers in an expanding town. Which I ought to take as a concern, as it either means you ain’t very good at your job, or you’re hiding things from me.”

“Well, I’d hope you’d take that as flattery and not as an insult,” Hosea said, making an attempt at brushing it off.

Except there it was. The chance for Bessie to call his bluff, and he'd escorted her right to it. 

“Do you think I’m a fool, Hosea?” Bessie asked, sighing and pulling away from him, walking towards the lakeshore. “ _ Passing through _ , you said. I know you ain’t passing through because no one would stay here that long unless they wanted to do business. I ain't that special, and you've got to know I ain’t buying none of this.”

Hosea opened his mouth briefly, then thought better of what he planned to say and closed it again. “I had a feeling you weren’t. It’s why I’ve come to enjoy your company so much.”

“And yet you continue to talk around the situation, and act as though it’s Mr. Chambers who is the problem here. And I doubt that is his real name as much as I doubt yours is Mr. Carmichael.” Bessie sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “I can’t decide if you believe I’m a fool like every other man here does, who comes groveling to my father for my hand because they think they’ll get what’s his that way, and I was trying to sort out if that was your plan as well. Investment banker, indeed. As though I do not know a thing or two. And I let it go because you made me laugh. Because I thought maybe sooner or later you'd be more honest.” She rubbed her chin, shaking her head.

Hosea walked after her, resting his thumbs in his belt. She sounded annoyed, but not angry. That was a good sign, he hoped. “I do talk around things. But so do you. I’m sure you’re sick of knowing something and not saying it.”

He knew he was. Maybe that was it. Maybe being around Dutch made him want to be more honest. Maybe something approaching  _ good _ . And maybe he wanted something from Dutch that wasn’t worth saying anything about.

Maybe he loved Dutch, though in a different way than he was finding that he loved Bessie. They both made him think he could be a better man than he had been, but with Dutch it would be a fight, and with Bessie it would be, well, a surrender. But good could come of surrender. And what could come from loving Dutch, a dreamer and a thief? And a man.

_ Not like it’s never been done before _ . Just not for him. And not for Dutch.

“I am sick to death of so many things, Hosea,” Bessie said, looking out at the lake. “I like you, I do. But I do not trust you. And I meant what I said, I’ll be no one’s regret. Or an excuse. You tell me straight, what’s this choice you’ve got to make?”

Hosea leaned a little closer to her, his arm brushing hers. She didn’t flinch away, but she didn’t look at him.

“If I should try and make a life here with you, or if I should move on with Mr. Chambers,” Hosea said, looking to her. “Though it occurs to me now that you may not want me, considering I have not been truthful with you.”

“God. Damn you, Hosea. How can I say yes to something like that when I don’t know anything about you? I don’t even know your name,” Bessie said, shrugging helplessly. “And it seems like you don’t even know if you want me or not either.”

“Hosea. Hosea is my real name, Bessie. It’s why I like it when you say it,” Hosea said, smiling a little, lightly elbowing her and hoping he could make her smile. “And if you understand that I don’t even know what I want, then I must be on the right track to letting you know me.”

Bessie did smile at that.

“Well, let me think about whether or not I’d say yes. Then you think about whether or not you’d ask at all,” Bessie said, taking his arm in hers and steering him back towards town. “And understand that if I did find out for any reason that this is a ploy and you aim to break my heart, I’ll put the hangman’s noose on you myself.”

Hosea laughed, tipping his hat to her. “And if I did break your heart, I’d let you do it.”

Dutch wasn’t at the hotel when he got back, which worried him. Instead, the hotel owner met him at the front desk, and offered him a letter that hadn’t been sealed.

“Mr. Chambers left this for you, sir. He insisted it must be given to you by me so that it couldn’t be missed,” the man said, trying to give a polite smile, but Hosea could see an unnatural interest in handing the letter to him. No seal, which meant the man could have read it. No sign that there  _ had _ been a seal, which meant that whatever Dutch had written was meant to be read by anyone.

Which was concerning, especially after their fight that morning.

“Thank you, Mr. Wilcox, I appreciate you doing that favor for us,” Hosea said, taking the letter and opening it. There was a smudged mark on it, which Dutch was unlikely to have left himself.

_ My dear Mr. Carmichael,  _ it began - which Hosea tried not to think too much about if Dutch wanted everyone in the town to know what he had written,  _ per our last conversation I have considered our present situation. Nightingale is, I think, the perfect spot for investment. The trick will be deciding which area would be preferable for our client’s interests. I am going one town over to send them our missive as to their preference of location for the storage yard. I do anticipate the worth of such an investment to be in the realm of ten thousand dollars for the cost of the land and development in this area. Perhaps it would be in our best interest to scout for potential locations, and places we could put up employees for the pharmacy’s workers. Someone, I think, will be very lucky. _

Hosea was going to kill him.

_ All the best, your friend Mr. Timothy Chambers _

_ P.S, I shall see you tomorrow evening where we can discuss the matter further. We shall dream a little. _

“Good news, I take it, Mr. Carmichael?” Mr. Wilcox asked, shifting from foot to foot. No doubt at the idea of the big pharmaceutical companies building their storage yards in Nightingale, and all the workers who would need to be housed while that happened.

Long cons. Hosea avoided long cons when he could, but he had incidentally given the perfect cover for one. They’d been paying the hotel enough to make anyone  _ believe _ they were living within their means. He’d given Bessie expensive gifts, she’d worn them around town. They’d told everyone they were only passing through.

All too easy to make anyone think that they’d been charmed by Nightingale. That they’d passed on a more expensive larger town and decided on a smaller expanding one. That Hosea had been equally smitten with the grocer’s daughter, who in Bessie’s own words had been pursued because of her father’s property already.

Hosea wondered how much Mr. Smith owned, and if the assumption was that he and Dutch’s ‘investors’ would take his land over anyone else’s, with a fancy banker being enamored with his daughter and all. Hosea wondered how many would wine and dine them in an attempt to win them over, and who might bribe them to pick their land for the venture over anyone else’s.

“Quite good news, quite indeed.” Hosea smiled from ear to ear, but he wanted to throw the man through the nearest window, and Dutch with him. It was a damn good plan. Too good. “You know, we will likely have to extend our stay a little longer. Now, do tell me, Mr. Wilcox, you’re a man of business, how well would you say others of your like are faring these days?”

And Mr. Wilcox was only so delighted to give him every single detail he could think up in the moment. Hosea let him talk, getting a sense of the man as best he could. Dutch had mentioned he thought the man was a greedy little prick, and Hosea agreed with the assessment. An honest man would have simply passed Hosea the mail, maybe feigned some interest – but likely not much. Hosea had known honest men before. He wasn’t unconvinced that the hotel’s proprietor hadn’t searched their room while they were out.

More fool to him, neither Hosea nor Dutch left much of anything in the room, let alone something valuable.

Greedy men were easier to manipulate than honest ones, and Hosea had always had an easier time understanding what they were thinking about. The first step in any con was knowing what the person wanted, and in the end everyone could be bought. Just not always with money.

He let Wilcox talk, giving him the names of "interested parties, who of course have nothing to be interested in, but are certainly wealthy enough to make a deal if there’s something that you think is worthy of investment, Mr. Carmichael" and so on. Hosea nodded. He smiled. He laughed.

Mr. Goodsir, who owned the largest farm in town. Mr. Miller, who owned the saloon. Deputy Skelton, who owned the stable. And of course, the dear Mr. Wilcox himself, who happily implied with a, “I’d be happy to introduce you formally to the gentlemen in question. They’re all fine men. Fine men. With capitol to repay any investment. And certainly with land that you could easily look to. If you were planning to stay that is. Make investments. If that, being your business, was something you wanted to pursue here.”

“I think I should like that very much. Mr. Chambers will be back… tomorrow, I believe?”

“Yes that’s-” Mr. Wilcox wisely cut himself off. “ _ If  _ that is what he has said in his letter.”

“Indeed, it was. I should like to meet these gentlemen. Though, I must wait for Mr. Chambers,” Hosea said, taking a cigarette from the counter.

“Well, please, allow me to offer my establishment for such a soiree. As a thank you for your patronage here, rather than at the saloon. I’d hate for you gentlemen to be interrupted,” Mr. Wilcox offered, rubbing his hands together before offering Hosea a match, lighting his cigarette for him.

“And that is mighty kind of you, Mr. Wilcox. You know, it says a lot about the character of a man who is willing to open his place of business to men looking to conduct their own. I’m only surprised you didn’t mention Mr. Smith as someone with a booming business in this fine town.” It was a risky move to mention him. But everyone would have seen Hosea escorting Bessie around town. To not mention her father was hardly inconspicuous.

“Oh, yes. Mr. Smith is, of course, also a man of some account. I shouldn’t have left him out. I do know you have called on Miss Bessie, so I was… unsure if you’d be interested in business with her father. Outside of that, that is,” Mr. Wilcox said, bringing the match to his own cigarette. “Some men don’t like to mix business and affairs of the heart.”

“Ha, more the fool to me,” Hosea said, taking a long draw of the smoke. More the fool to him on two accounts.

Even mad at Dutch, he couldn’t turn down a good plan. He couldn’t ignore that his heart beat just as fast, or faster, then when he’d kissed Bessie’s cheek. He could feel a sweet tingle from his toes to his knees every time he was given the name of someone with money. Wilcox practically handed him the ammunition and offered him drinks to top it off.

“I would, if I could, only rob people who take from other people. And I mean really take, you understand my meaning?” Dutch said, the night they met, when they were about ready to pass out from drinking their extremely cheap liquor. “Not just robbing those with less than them, though I do mean them also, but I mean the wealthy. The elite. The ones who never… give anything back. Make all the rules and then don’t follow them so they can take advantage. I want to burn them to the ground, Hosea.”

“It’s a nice thought.” Hosea agreed, looking up at the stars as he lay beside Dutch, feeling the warmth of the fire on his skin. He wished he could say what it was about that moment that got him. Maybe just Dutch’s enthusiasm. Maybe just because he had honestly thought Dutch might kill him, and because he thought he was ready for it.

He had burned so many bridges, destroyed so many lives, and for what? He wasn’t suited for honest work. He didn’t have a single friend he could name. Not a single contact whose hide he wouldn’t sell for a nickel. Maybe he’d hoped, just briefly, that Dutch would come back and kill him.

He had been so tired. Dutch made him feel reborn.

“It’s more than just a thought, Mr. Matthews,” Dutch said, reaching back and putting his hat over Hosea’s face. “I’m going to find a way. And if we’re to be partners in this venture, I think you and I shall have to work on our targets carefully, don’t you think? We need to think of a good con. Something that will make people really think we’re something special…”

Dutch’s hat smelled like cigars and the open road.

“Oh, you're something special, alright. We’ll need some finer clothes though, which means a more old fashioned robbery, don’t you think?” Hosea said, slipping the hat back onto his forehead.

“Ah, well, everyone has to get their start somewhere.”

“Why are you so dead set on this route?” Hosea asked, turning onto his side and watching Dutch as he stared up at the stars. “Why the noble cause? I know younger men are always full of ideas, but usually a few weeks on the road does them in quickly enough.”

Dutch hadn’t looked at him then. He’d seemed transfixed by the world far above them. And he’d been, though Hosea was loath to admit it, beautiful. Lost. His eyes sparkling like a preacher who had seen God, but he hadn’t been looking at anything at all. He’d been a thousand miles away from anyone and everything around them.

“I don’t think a single thing in this world or any other can quash what I feel, Mr. Matthews. I believe because it’s in my bones to believe. Because it’s in my soul, such as it is. I love this country. And ain’t no one going to stop it from being what it should be. Over my dead body will America become a corrupted cesspool like every other so-called civilized society. America will be free, or I’ll be dead. Even if I’m the last man standing in the way of it.”

And Hosea supposed that had been that. The moment he’d decided he had to keep Dutch alive.

It was the only dream that seemed worth having, and ultimately, that was the problem with Dutch.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> A special thanks to my beta Aisu, who has no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, but they're amazing.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Just need to talk about cowboys as desperately as I do? Find me on tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or over on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee. This fic is currently on a monthly update schedule, but the day is a little all over the map because life is like that.


	3. The Third Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody, I added some tags for this one but I honestly feel like there's every possibility that I've missed something. Let me know if there's a tag you feel like I didn't include.

**Chapter Three** :  **The Third Man**

The first time Dutch had killed a man to protect Hosea had not been the first time Dutch had ever killed a man. That had been to protect his mother, when a robber entered their house in Pennsylvania and grabbed her by the hair, trying to drag her out onto his horse and into the night. Dutch had his father’s pistol – the only thing that the army had been able to give him.

Dutch shot the man clean through the eye, even as he’d held Dutch’s mother prisoner.

She hadn’t thanked him, just made him carry the body outside and clean the blood out of the floor. Except, even with a bullet clean through the eye, the man had still been alive, staring straight up at the ceiling and gaping, mouth moving. 

“Where am I?” he’d asked, barely audible. “Where am I?”

The eye the man still had was wild, searching in all directions, but it didn’t seem to see anything. He’d bled from his ear and from the hole in his head, but the first bullet hadn’t gone through his skull to the other side. Somewhere in that man’s head, a miracle had occurred, Dutch surmised.

The second bullet did go through the man’s skull. Dutch’s mother had stood over his shoulder and watched him pull the trigger on the helpless man before them. She didn’t say anything else, just tilted her head, almost like she was curious. Dutch had been too.

He’d killed animals before, but never a man. It hadn’t been as different as he’d assumed it would be. The more he did it, the less different it became.

The second time he’d killed a man, it had been for Hosea. Hosea hadn’t been curious, like Dutch’s mother had been. He hadn’t even batted an eye. It had only been a week or so after they’d met, some bandits trying to rob them by the side of the road. Hosea had been trying to talk his way out of it, and it had just seemed like one man, but Dutch had seen someone else in the brush, waiting for them to make a move.

Dutch had always been ambidextrous, so coincidentally, the third man Dutch had killed had also been to protect Hosea.

“Damn, Dutch,” Hosea had said, looking over his shoulder. “I didn’t even see that one. Think they have any cash?”

They had avoided killing when they could. It drew unnecessary attention, for one thing, and it was hardly a noble calling. Except,  _ except _ , Dutch knew, for when he thought Hosea was in real danger. He was no cold-blooded killer. Killing needlessly was artless. And it was… easy. It was so easy.

And killing for Hosea was even easier than killing for his mother had been, for while he had loved her, the two of them had never liked each other. But Hosea was, well, different. Hosea had always been different. Dutch had gotten to the point where he couldn’t sleep without hearing him snoring softly nearby. It had gotten to where Hosea reading him articles from the newspaper made him feel like there was a reason to get up in the morning.

The snake twisted again in his guts. He would do anything for Hosea.

Which was why Dutch had left Nightingale and headed into the next town over, New Surry, which was somewhat closer in approximation to a city than Nightingale was. It was older than the fresh new town where he’d left Hosea, and more entrenched in their drive towards civilization, but not as large as some of the cities that Dutch had seen in his travels. It was also about as many people as he could stand being in one location, but there were some net positives that came from that.

Mainly, anonymity.

It was unlikely that anyone was going to remember him, but he liked to think that he could be a careful man when called upon to be. He didn’t want another situation like Ohio where someone he’d thought would forget him had done quite the opposite, which meant that he didn’t want to drop off his letters at the post office himself, just in case.

On top of that, ensuring that the letters arrived in Nightingale when he wanted them to would be an issue. There needed to be enough time between when he had reportedly sent the letter to when the ‘response’ arrived, and there needed to be follow up letters sent to verify things. Going back and forth to New Surry would draw suspicion a lot faster than it wouldn’t.

Which called for a third man. That in itself was an annoyance, because if they had planned ahead then Dutch could have sent the letters while Hosea worked his charms, but…

But Hosea was working other charms.

_ He just needs a reminder, is all. Of how good things can be with him and me. _ Gentle persuasion that Bessie was simply not an ideal match. That anything she could offer, Dutch could offer twice over.

In this case, the third man was unavoidable. The trick was finding someone reliable enough to deliver the letters, and dirty enough to not ask any questions. He’d rather have had a second set of eyes on that, but he’d have to trust his own judgement. He’d done it on his own before Hosea, and he could manage without him.

Without picturing Hosea clasping his shoulder, laughing. Without remembering Hosea fixing his collar, or patting his cheek, like they’d known each other for years instead of only six months. Like Dutch wouldn’t think about Hosea’s fingers on the skin of his collar, instead of just cloth.

Like it wasn’t something any man would think about. Any man. After so much time on the road. Like any man wouldn’t be caught up by Hosea. Like any woman wouldn’t be.

_ You are getting off track _ .

So, Dutch headed for the saloons. But it had to be the right kind of saloon. Shady, but not  _ too _ shady. He needed someone who could string a sentence together and be relied on to do the job.

It took him a little while to scout out exactly what he needed. There was money in New Surry. Civilization. Which meant that rich men lived there, and brought their families with them. Which, in Dutch’s experience, meant that a great deal of those rich men had something they wanted to hide from their families.

Those saloons were the ones he was looking for, and it didn’t take him too long to find one.

Interestingly enough, there was no sign to say what it was, but there were men as sharply dressed as Dutch who were heading inside, which gave him a general idea of what to expect. He could hear the music from a piano inside, and both men and women laughing.

He smiled, brushing past the doors, lightly bumping into a man on his way out. The man coughed, smiling and tipping his hat.

Dutch did the same in return, holding the door and offering the same dazzling smile that Hosea always flashed. With his other hand, he tucked the small billfold he’d taken from the man’s pocket into his pants. “So sorry. Have a nice evening, sir.”

“No, my fault entirely. You enjoy your time here, sir,” the man said, with a knowing smile that briefly made Dutch think that he’d been noticed. But no, the man continued on his way, glancing around to make certain no one had seen him as he went.

“Hm,” Dutch mumbled, slipping inside the room.

It wasn’t quite the loud and rowdy space he was expecting from the laughter he had heard outside, but it was still busy. There were tables for craps, and it was possible to get a glimpse of the room doors in the back and upstairs Every man at the bar had a woman at his arm, except a few who Dutch presumed worked there, along with those who seemed to be waiting around the rooms to open on the floor above them. A piano played, and a woman sang a bawdy tune. Dutch didn’t know the words, but several patrons seemed to, and they sang along with the scantily clad women on their arms.

More a whorehouse than a saloon, then.

It could still work. A woman could deliver the letters as easily as a man could, and was less likely to be noticed. He went to the bar, leaning against it and raising his hand briefly to catch the bartender’s attention.

“What can I get you?”

“Whiskey,” Dutch said, tapping the billfold against the bar. He’d always enjoyed spending money that wasn’t his, which on the balance of things was all of the money he’d spent.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before,” said the man beside him, one of the few in the room who didn’t have a woman attached to him. He wasn’t a small man, and he was getting on in his years. He may have been Dutch’s size once, but he’d reckon a combination of idleness and the drink was on the edges of undoing whatever man he’d been before. He was maybe Hosea’s age, but far worse for wear overall. Maybe a little older, or maybe he’d just seen harder times.

Or maybe he just treated himself a hell of a lot worse.

“Just passing through town. No trouble, if you’re worried,” Dutch said, winking at the man. “I only noticed the caliber of gentlemen coming here and thought it may be just what I was looking for.”

“Hah!” the man said, holding up his hand to the bartender for a drink.

The barman looked briefly annoyed, but gave him the drink all the same.

“You know, we have three other whore houses in this rat town, and men come and go from all of them, interchange them depending on what they want. We have a bit of a more…” The man tilted his head back and forth, chuckling. “Well, my dear wife says it best. We have a bit of a special clientele here. Now, it was my idea, but she does the operations. But what we’ve got here that no one else has is this; we can find you  _ exactly _ what you want.” He seemed exceedingly proud of that fact.

Dutch glanced around at the girls, though none of them he thought were especially impressive. Were it not for the lack of a name on the front door and the man he’d pickpocketed on the way in, he wouldn’t have thought it anything special. What he was looking for, but not special.

“Exactly what I want? Maybe it’s my travels speaking for me, but most men I know only have one thing that they want, and any whore house has that,” Dutch said, bitterly thinking of Hosea and Bessie. Would that any whore house could give Hosea that, so they could move on.

The man snorted, turning and resting his elbows on the bar. “Come on now, you can’t tell me there isn’t something you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t ask for – even when you were paying for it.”

Dutch snorted, raising an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Well,” The man grinned, leaning in a little closer. “There is a man upstairs right now who likes it when a lady takes a riding crop,” he reached down, grabbing at his crotch and squeezing tightly, “right against his balls.”

“My, my,” Dutch said, wincing at that thought. “And he pays for a woman to do that to him?”

“I like to think the gentleman pays for our discretion. Which is why I won’t tell you his name, or what he looks like.” The man grinned, tapping his nose. “Consummate professional, that’s me. But I have a client who want to suck on a woman’s toes. And, for a little bit of a higher expense, one who likes to tie up a woman and…” He trailed off suggestively. “Well, you know.”

Dutch knew the man was looking for something that would catch Dutch’s interest, and he played along. Discretion. An expectation of client satisfaction, a general sense of discretion; and a strong incentive for return customers.

“I can’t say that I do. Understand, that is,” Dutch said, sipping at his whiskey.

“Ah, well, ropes and riding crops and feet aren’t for everyone,” the man said, raising his glass to Dutch and taking a sip of it. “I have some fellas who like to wear women’s undergarments, that one is popular. And a few who don’t want women at all. They’d rather have another man.”

Almost involuntarily, Dutch felt his fingers tighten on his glass.

He could feel Hosea’s hands on his collar, fixing it for him, chuckling at his early efforts to appear as a respectful investor, back at their first job in Ohio. Hosea’s fingers on his neck, so close that all he would have to do was squeeze and Dutch could have died.

“ _ Let’s make you respectable, shall we? _ ” Hosea had laughed. “ _ I can’t very well be seen with you as a partner if you look like a ruffian _ .” And Hosea had looked more dapper than any man Dutch had ever seen, right then.

He’d envied him and his confidence. And there was that other thing. That  _ want _ , that Dutch always felt deep in his belly when he felt the slightest desire for something he knew he shouldn’t have. But other men,  _ lesser _ men, didn’t take what they really wanted. Dutch had never been a lesser man.

Yet the subject of Hosea was always a cause for some anxiety, which was not something Dutch was used to. Because why would any of it matter if Hosea didn’t want him back?

He could make Hosea want him, though. Given enough time, Dutch knew he could make anyone choose him, except maybe his mother, and she’d just known him too well to fall into any of his traps. Nothing had ever touched her, not after his daddy died.

Other women moved on after the war, but she had been like stone. Unmoved. Unshaken. Sometimes Dutch wondered if it was revenge that she had wanted, especially in that moment where she’d stood over the man he’d killed to save her. She hadn’t even screamed when the thief tried to drag her out the window, just grabbed onto a support beam and held tight. He thought of her silent rage. Her tightly wound inability to ask for anything or take what she wanted.

She and Hosea were nothing alike, just as Dutch was nothing like her. He was a fighter, like his daddy. He took what he wanted, like Hosea did. He never let go, like his mother did.

“ _ You should remarry, Mrs. Van Der Linde. You’re still young. You don’t have to live alone _ ,” he remembered their priest telling her at the church one day.

“ _ Why? Is there any man I would love like I did him? _ ”

“ _ Leaving love aside, Mrs. Van Der Linde-” _

“ _ Never _ ,” she’d said, hard as iron and as unrelenting as a diamond. “ _ Love is all that makes living worthwhile, and I shall never leave that aside. Even if it is gone for me, it is not forgotten _ .”

Dutch and his mother didn’t always see eye to eye, but he admired that about her. Even if she wouldn’t take what she wanted, she never bowed to anyone else’s will either. He wondered, not for the first time, what she had done when he’d left. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

He wouldn’t have that with Hosea. Not a wordless, cold relationship where he left as though there was no love between them. He just… He just wanted Hosea to touch him again. A small thing. To be close to him. To listen to his breathing at night before he fell asleep.

“You do not strike me as someone who would wear a corset, though if you did I’d not fault you for it, some men look almost as good as a woman in them. I’ve never seen the appeal in a man myself, but the right man in the right garment? I’ve come to terms with how someone could think twice, yes indeed,” the man at the bar was saying, but his eyes were on Dutch’s hand, clenched around his drink. “But you never can tell when there’s a man who wants to try things with another man. You know, often it’s necessity, out on the road with no women about except in a saloon every hundred or more miles, but sometimes… Well, as I said, I’m no man to judge another for his indulgences. I myself have been married twice now, on account of being a tragically unfortunate husband. And I say, why not? Why not, if a man can lick a woman’s feet and find pleasure in it, should he not be able to do…” He waved his drink idly at the room. “...whatever he wants, with whoever wants him?”

Dutch snorted, sipping at his drink. “Your business must call on you to make a lot of assumptions about what a man wants, my good man.”

The man smiled, clicking his drink against Dutch’s. “I am known for being presumptuous. And am rarely wrong.”

“Well, that being said I did not actually come here tonight looking for company, corset wearing or otherwise,” Dutch said, hooking one finger in his vest as he took another drink. “I was looking for a man to do a job for me.”

The man raised an eyebrow, looking intrigued. “Oh?”

“It’s a relatively simple one. Next week, this time today, I need this letter posted,” Dutch said, pulling two letters from his pocket. “And the following week, I need the second one sent. Five dollars up front to send the first, and five dollars once it’s done.”

The man smiled idly. “You know, five dollars is what we charge for most of the whores here. Seems like not much for a lot of money.”

“The money is so that you don’t ask any questions,” Dutch said, brushing the letters back and forth his fingers. “And, if you are as reliable and discreet as you claim to be, I can hardly say it would be an issue for your fine self, sir.”

The man scratched at his beard, looking intrigued. “That’s awfully trusting of you, seeing as how we just met and all.”

“Well, what can I say? You give me a good feeling. Speaking about your discretion,” Dutch said, tucking the letters back in his vest, feeling the man’s eyes traveling after them. “If this is your place, anyway. I would imagine it would require discretion.”

“Well, less mine. In name mine, yes, but more my wife’s. You know what they say, never do yourself what you can have someone else do for you.” The man laughed, drinking his whisky. “But that being said, if you want me delivering them letters on your behalf…”

“It would be you. No one else,” Dutch said, finishing his drink and setting it aside. “Or, if it were someone else, someone who at least knows how to send mail. Which I assume you have the knowhow for.” He smiled, taking a cigarette from his other pocket.

“I do, I do. Not to worry, it would be me, no one else,” the man said, holding up his hands. “I am nothing if not a man of my word.”

“Are you?” Dutch asked, putting the cigarette in his mouth while the man lit him a match and held it out for him.

“Not in the least, but for five dollars now and five dollars later, I can be, yes.” The man grinned. “I would ask one thing of you, though. If we’re going to be doing a transaction like the one you’re suggesting.”

Dutch leaned into the match, letting it catch his cigarette for him. He looked the man up and down. He seemed harmless enough, but then, Hosea seemed harmless.

He breathed out the smoke, looking back at the barman. “This man owns this joint, and isn’t just having a go at me is he?”

The barman looked at the man beside Dutch, who had his back to him. “Take my orders from his better half, most days. But he does pay me at the end of the night, and I believe his name is on everything.” He looked especially bitter about that.

Dutch briefly thought he should have asked the barman instead, but he was where he was, so he would make it work. He wondered, absently, if the barman fancied the man’s wife.

“Well, alright then,” he said, raising his cigarette to the man beside him as an offering, “what is it that you want me to do for you?”

The man took the cigarette, taking a quick puff before he handed it back. “Tonight, just for tonight, do what you want to be doing. Though, and you can tell me if I’m being too presumptuous, it may only be what one might call a close approximation to who you want to be doing it with… But then, no one here is usually doing what they want to be doing with the person they want to be doing it with. Except on rare occasion, in which case, blessings to them both, that’s what I say to that. But, I am a man who believes in the happiness of other men – since I don’t think that there’s any pleasing women, you know what I mean?” He chuckled, elbowing Dutch lightly. “But do what you want to be doing.”

“Almost feels like you’re offering it for free, but I don’t think I’ve ever known a pimp to do that,” Dutch said, taking the cigarette between his fingers and flicking the ashes aside.

“Of course not, why would I ever do that?” The man chuckled. “But as you have never been to this establishment before, and you are rightly offering to trust me with your business, let me assure you that I am a man who knows the importance of a satisfied customer. And I’ll give you a discount.”

His mind drifted to Hosea, as it so often did. Tall, skinny Hosea. Dutch had washed his back in the tub when they’d had occasion to have a place that offered the service, and they’d been around each other long enough to wash in the lake, or just to have a need to air out their clothes. He loved seeing Hosea vulnerable like that. Just for him.

And for Bessie. Now for Bessie too.

“And you think you know what I want?” Dutch asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have some idea. I have an eye for that, you know. But the specifics… well, that’s up to you,” the man said, spreading his hands suggestively.

Dutch licked his lips, thoughtfully taking the cigarette in his mouth again. “Tall. Skinny. Experienced. You have anything like that?” A man. But while Dutch hated anyone telling him what to do or who he could do it yet, and for all the man’s talk about not caring, Dutch knew people. Mainly he knew not to trust people.

People loved their rules. They loved using them to look down on other people. Slavery. Fallen women.  _ Degenerates _ . Any excuse. Any excuse for those with power to take it from anyone else they could. Which left him to gauge if the man before him was that kind of man or not. If men doing what made them happy mattered at all.

“Got skinny, got experienced… Probably tall enough. Your height? Thereabouts? Don’t have quite as many of them squirreled away as I do the girls. But I’ll do you right, that’s a promise, sir.” The man chuckled.

“Alright then. Alright,” Dutch said, taking the cigarette in his mouth again. He wasn’t quite sure why he was taking the man up on his offer. Maybe it had just been a while. Maybe it would help take Hosea and what he wanted from Hosea off his mind.

Only it wouldn’t. He knew it wouldn’t. He was starting to forget what it felt like to not consider Hosea in every choice he made. Or perhaps every choice inevitably led him back to Hosea, and in some version of some divine plan written by angels far beyond his ability to comprehend, he was always meant to consider that. Nothing before Hosea had been the way it was supposed to be.

It wasn’t the sort of thing a man could just give up.

“You know, it occurs to me I never did ask for your name,” Dutch said, looking over at the aging pimp. “It feels dreadfully rude of me, considering how deeply you’ve managed to pry into my private affairs in the short time we’ve known each other.”

“Ah, well, no one here asks for anybody’s names usually. I suspect most folks would just lie about it anyway,” the man said, and Dutch supposed that was true enough. He’d fully intended to lie about his name, after all. “But most folk around here just call me Uncle. And I like that just fine. Though not quite so much as the gentlemen who enjoy when a girl calls them Daddy.” He laughed at his own joke, taking a key from his pocket and putting it in Dutch’s hand. “And what they call you is completely in your own hands, my friend.”

Dutch took the key, and put the letters in Uncle’s hands, along with ten dollars. Five, as promised, for the letters, and he assumed five for the night, which seemed to satisfy him.

“One letter one week from today, the second letter a week after that?” Uncle asked, waving the letters.

Dutch nodded, looking at the room key and slapping it softly against the palm of his hand. Room four. “Exactly, exactly, my friend.” He tipped his hat, heading for the stairs and twirling the key between his fingers. “I hope this will be a fruitful relationship.”

Room four was well stocked, with drinks and a bed just as comfortable as the hotel room back in Nightingale. Nightingale, where he’d left Hosea alone with Bessie. But he couldn’t lose sight of the issue at hand. Motivating Hosea. Reminding him that what Bessie represented. Civilization. Rules. Other people saying what they should do and what they should think. A prison. That was Bessie’s world.

But when Dutch closed his eyes, even with a roof over his head, he saw an open sky and endless plains. Hard, honest living where he could breathe and live as he chose.  _ Where any man could… what was it Uncle said? Believe in the happiness of other men. What a delightful thought _ . Even if it did make him think of his mother.

He liked to think in some version of the world there was a way he could have made her happy, though he suspected his father surviving would have been the only way that could have happened. Or if he had been a more obedient child – which he had not, nor would ever be. Obedience would only make others happy because it would keep him and those like him in their place.

Dutch knew he would fight for the rest of his life. He rather looked forward to it.

There was a soft knock at the door, pulling him back into the moment.

“Come in,” Dutch called, stroking his chin absently.

He half expected that Uncle was full of it and a tall woman would be exactly what he got, but a man did walk into the room. Around as tall as Dutch was, though skinnier, and he thought maybe around the same age, but it was hard to say.

He had dark hair, and blue eyes… Nothing like what Dutch wanted, really. But then, who could compare?

“You look disappointed,” the man said, closing the door behind him and taking off his shirt. Dutch could see the man’s ribs, he was so skinny. He hesitated briefly, with the shirt halfway off, sliding down his arms. “Did you expect one of the girls?”

“No. Well, thought one might show up instead of you, I’ll admit, but no. Just someone else, who wouldn’t be here anyway,” Dutch said, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. “Uncle, downstairs, he actually any good at keeping a secret?”

“For the right price, yeah,” the man said, walking towards the bed until he stood between Dutch’s knees. “Aside from pulling his weight, Uncle’ll do right by you. But he does what he says he’ll do.” He knelt, undoing Dutch’s belt and running his hands over his thighs. “He wouldn’t be in business if he didn’t know when to shut up.”

“There is that,” Dutch said, leaning back and letting the whore massage his thighs. “Let me ask you something else. How long have you been doing…” he waved his hand around the room. “All this?”

The man shrugged. “Long enough.” He reached inside Dutch’s pants, massaging his cock slowly, getting him to respond with experienced fingers. His fingers traced along his shaft, moving around his head, firm and sure.

Dutch envied that. A clarity of purpose.

“You enjoy it?” Dutch asked, forcing himself to breathe. It had been a while.

The last time, though, had been a much different brothel in a shit cattle town, and while Dutch had a girl in his lap he’d been watching Hosea with a different girl. He’d watched Hosea kiss her neck, and idly move her hair out of the way. Seen him lift up her dress and get his hands between her legs, when he thought no one was looking. When he thought Dutch was too distracted with his own girl.

Dutch hadn’t seen the woman moan at whatever Hosea was doing to her between her skirts, but he had envied her that touch. He didn’t hate her like he hated Bessie, but he had wanted to ask her how it felt. If she knew how lucky she was. How he would have paid twice whatever Hosea had given her to have traded places.

“Most days, sure, I enjoy it. Beats starving out there in the streets, dying in a gunfight or manual labor,” the whore said, lifting Dutch’s hips gently to pull down his pants even further.

Dutch let him, undoing his shirt, absently stroking his chest. “Doesn’t bother you? Doing it with men?”

The man paused briefly, tilting his head. “You never been with a man before?”

“Would it bother you if I hadn’t been?” Dutch asked, smiling despite himself. He tossed his shirt aside, laying back on the bed and putting his hands behind his head.

“Nah, not really. I can show you the ropes,” the whore said, shrugging as he knelt on the floor, leaning in and kissing Dutch’s thighs. “Just wondering why now?”

Dutch ran his fingers through his chest hair, absently feeling his own nipple. He wondered if Hosea liked being touched like that.

He wondered when the exact moment was that he’d become so consumed with Hosea and what he wanted was, exactly.

“I,” Dutch said, considering his next words as the whore leaned in and kissed the inside of his thigh, “have always told myself that I would do…” the man kissed closer, letting his tongue roll along Dutch’s skin and making him take a long breath, “exactly what I wanted. Damn the consequences. And I…” the man took Dutch in his mouth, circling his tongue around his slit, tasting him, feeling him, “will not give up my freedom because anyone in  _ society _ tells me what I can and can’t do.”

The whore smiled, pulling back and looking up at him, wrapping his hand around the base of Dutch’s erection, feeling the base. “And you want to do it right?”

“Hm?” Dutch grunted, reaching out and gripping the man’s hair, holding him in place against his thigh.

“Whoever you wish I was. You want to make sure you know how to do him the right way,” he suggested, not fighting Dutch’s tight grip on his hair or even looking particularly perturbed by it.

“And if I did?” Dutch asked, feeling goosebumps raising on the back of his neck. He licked his lips, looking at the man below him. At his mercy.

“Then I can show you how,” the man said, his fingers dipping lower, stroking along Dutch’s balls and cupping them lightly. “I can show you everything I know.”

Dutch pretended to consider, but he already knew that was what he wanted. He couldn’t pretend the man at his feet was Hosea. He was nothing like Hosea.

But he could give him something else he needed.

“Show me.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say Uncle.
> 
> Questions? Concerns? Find me on tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or over on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee.


	4. The Pressing Concerns of the Future Bessie Matthews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, October and November have been a bit of a shit show for me for a variety of reasons. I'm hoping to stay a little more on top of the monthly updates going forward.
> 
> Please be advised this chapter has an unhealthy dose of misogyny.

On the measure of things, Bessie believed she was no man’s fool, but sitting in the Church pews and staring at the makeshift cross the Reverend had put together (feeling like an absolute God forsaken moron) she wanted to scream to the heavens, no matter who heard her do it. She just wanted to have some answer to why ,of all the people she could have been struck by, it was Hosea  _ Carmichael _ .

_ The Lord is testing you, Bessie Smith _ . She told herself.

That first day when she’d met Hosea she’d known he couldn’t be up to any good. Except he also fascinated her in the most awful way, luring her in with his smile and his seemingly sincere charm that she knew couldn’t be genuine. His hands were too rough to be a banker, but he wasn’t like any rancher she had ever met. He was too… smooth. Too handsome. With his slicked back blond hair and his honey eyes, with his pearly teeth. He was like no one she had ever seen and when she’d fallen into his arms, he’d caught her – the right bastard.

She clasped her hands together in prayer, taking a long deep breath.  _ The Lord is testing you. _

And of course with her hands clasped together, it was easy to feel as though Hosea’s hands were around them, holding them together. He had done it before, lain his lips on her skin, nuzzling it against hers. The thought raised goosebumps over her body, and made her catch her breath. Even though she wasn’t alone in the church, she couldn’t unfeel him, even in ways she hadn’t felt him yet.

It wasn’t that hard to stretch the imagination from his hands on her hips to his hands on her thighs. And she had pictured that, perhaps a little too vividly. And certainly too vividly to be imagining while she as in church.

_ Forgive me _ . She thought, even as imagined Hosea’s lips on the back of her neck, his hands lifting her dress, rubbing at her skin through the soft cotton of her underclothes. His hands drifting ever closer between her legs, where he might-

“You seem deep in thought today Miss Bessie, are you quite alright?”

Bessie straightened up so quickly one could have assumed she’d been poked with a branding iron, and it took every bit of self control she had not to swear when she hit her thumb against the pew and snapped off the tip of her nail doing it.

“Ah Chr-” She caught herself, forcing as big a smile onto her lips as should could. “Reverend. Yes. Forgive me. I am merely… deep in thought. On the passage you were reading. It was very beautiful.”

She had no idea what passage he had been reading, and she could feel the blood welling up under her broken thumbnail. Divine punishment, she supposed.  _ Forgive me. And curse Hosea, and his ill intentions whatever they were _ .

There was just no way to know what they were, though she was starting to gather a general sense of what they might be.

“I do find that when I am troubled, I find solace in our Lord.” The Reverend smiled, sitting down beside her. “But you can also speak to me, Miss Bessie. I know you’re a young woman of strong will and a good heart. Whatever it is, with a little guidance I’m sure you’ll find your way.”

“It’s uh…” Bessie cleared her throat, brushing back her hair. “Well, it’s complicated, Reverend. As I suppose all things can be.”

She thought about Hosea, and how often he’d lied to her. And it wasn’t so much that he lied that bothered her. All the men she’d known her entire life had lied to her, except her father who couldn’t understand the idea of a person speaking anything besides the truth.

Most men lied to her because they thought she was too stupid to understand what they were talking about. She was a small town shop girl, why would she read the papers, do business with her father, or have anything in her silly little head other than making dinner for her family or sewing a new dress to impress a man she liked? Why would any woman, ever, conceivably think of anything other than the needs of the men in her life?

And of course, there weren’t many women in town who weren’t prostitutes while Bessie was growing up. There hadn’t been other girls to play with, or children at all, and even now that she was a woman grown Bessie only knew six other women in the town who weren’t ‘fallen’, and they were all married. Most of the men in town only knew how to talk to a woman they were paying for, and the more she thought about it, she was fairly certain they didn’t know how to talk to those women either.

The Reverend wasn’t so bad. She didn’t think he really understood, but he was kind enough.

“Is it that man of yours?” The Reverend asked, which Bessie supposed shouldn’t have surprised her. “Talk of the town, this Mr. Carmichael and his companion Mr. Chambers… they’re stirring up quite a bit of interest.”

“You shouldn’t put too much stake in rumors, Reverend.” Bessie said, though she knew that was true. Mr. Chambers was hosting some soiree with Hosea and all the richest up and comers in town, and she couldn’t say she was looking forward to it. She disliked Mr. Wilcox, for one thing, but what Hosea had said to her the day before concerned her more.

Hosea was planning something. He had invited her father, and all the men of any consequence in town, to join them for a meeting. Bessie had almost asked her father not to go.

“I know I’d said I wouldn’t be mixing business with pleasure, and I do delight in your daughter Bessie’s company, but Mr. Chambers and I would like to do some business here, and I do not want to offend you by not inviting you.” Hosea had said, absolutely glowing as he’d discussed it with her father while she checked the store’s books.

“And I don’t want you thinking I’m throwing my daughter at you just because I want your money.” Her father had chuckled, shaking his head and restocking the shelves. “Alright, alright, I’ll go to your fancy business meeting Mr. Carmichael, though I do not want you to show me any favor. I’d prefer to be an honest man than a rich one.”

“Ah, well, I cannot promise I would make you rich, only that I can help you on your way. And the bank has limited funds to invest, so we typically take the candidate that makes the best offer. I do not want to be seen giving you an advantage even though I will say Miss Bessie means a great deal to me. I want to see her home town succeed the best way it can.” Hosea had said, his dazzling smile enough to melt the heart of any man.

Bessie hated that look, because she’d learned quickly in the past few weeks that it was as false as a magic trick in a traveling show. Her father was an honest business man in a small town though, and he took Hosea at his word. Bessie was a little more used to men who hid their true intentions behind false promises of virtue.

Even a small town was full of men like that.

“Well, that’s mighty sweet of you Mr. Carmichael. And I respect that you want to pick the best possible candidate. It shows a lot of backbone, and I like that kind of honesty.”

Bessie loved her father, but he expected the best of people. It was not a great trait in a salesman.

“Mr. Carmichael, can we talk for just a minute? Sorry, daddy, I promise it’ll only take a second.” She’d said, taking Hosea’s arm and leading him to one of the back rooms. Hosea didn’t protest, but the second his back was turned on her father, his expression completely changed.

The charm faded into way to a look of pensive concern. He detached himself from Bessie’s arm and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know what you’re going to say-”

“Hosea, I don’t want him there.” She’d insisted, cutting him off and coming back to him, clasping his hands with worry, squeezing just a little too tight. “Please don’t get him wrapped up in this. He’s a good man, and I don’t know what you’re planning then I’ll...”

She hated not knowing how to end the sentence. She knew that Hosea might hurt a good man, and still wanted him anyway.  _ Oh Lord, what have I done _ .

But if he hurt her father, she would kill him with her bare hands.

“I won’t.” Hosea said softly, taking her hands in his. “But if he isn’t there, and something happens, it’ll look suspicious if I didn’t invite him along. I promise, I’ll talk with… with Mr. Chambers,” he barely caught himself, “I won’t let anything happen to you, or to him, Bessie. You have my word.”

She shouldn’t believe him. Every bone in her body told her not to believe his honeyed words, or his damned kind eyes, or the lips that she’d made the mistake of letting kiss her.

But she did.

“Hosea don’t you dare lie to me.” Bessie said, reaching out and stroking his chin. “Don’t you dare break my heart like this.”

Hosea had smiled then, that strange genuine smile that had a way of wiggling right into her heart. He reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a silk handkerchief and offering it to her. She hadn’t even realized she was tearing up.

“Tell me to go, Bessie.” Hosea said, letting her take the silk from between his fingers. “Tell me to leave forever, and I’ll go. But if you tell me to stay, I promise I’ll never let you down. Swear it on my life. As long as you need me, I’m here for you.”

She’d tried to tell him to leave. She really had. But the thought of saying the words ‘leave town and never come back’ twisted her tongue and kept themselves lodged solidly in her throat. It wasn’t just that Hosea made her feel clever and beautiful; it was that he made her feel like she might be more than some ornament to dangle on his wall. Like he wasn’t just planning on using marrying her to get his hands on her father’s store, like every other man who’d proposed to her – though she had an awful feeling that was exactly what Hosea wanted.

But any other man in town was at best a promise of a dull life. At worst…

It was worth the risk, wasn’t it?

“Well, Miss Bessie things aren’t always as complicated as we want to believe they are,” the Reverend said, drawing her back into the present, “so if there’s anything I can do, you can always ask it of me.”

She wondered if he was dying to ask her all about her handsome stranger, and if he was the cause of her woe. Which he very much was.

“It’s not so much something anyone can do something about, Reverend.” Bessie said, looking down at her folded hands and twisting them back and forth. “I suppose I was just expecting falling in love to be something simple and pure and beautiful… turns out it’s anything but those things. But I’ve never met anyone who’s made me feel this way before. And he makes me worry that I’ll never meet anyone who makes me feel this way again.”

Not in a little town like Nightingale.

“Oh, dear…” the Reverend said, sighing and folding his hands in his lap. “I know you feel that way now, but if you’re so torn about things you can always consider some other men in town. He ain’t the only man in the world, even if it feels that way. I know he’s flashy and new, what with his money and his big words… but there’s good men here in town who’d just as soon have you for their wife. I know how worried you are about becoming an old maid, as all women do.”

Old maid. Yes, she supposed that was what she should have been worried about. That her marriage to any man would forfeit her inheritance of everything her parents had worked so hard for didn’t play into it as far as everyone else seemed to be concerned. But it meant everything to her. Someone could swoop in and steal it all in a heartbeat.

_ Damn Hosea and his lies for making me forget that _ . He was a trap. A honeyed trap, but a trap none the less. And she could think she was playing him all she wanted, but he was the only one who knew his own mind… and even if he wanted to do right by her, she had no guarantee the so-called Mr. Chambers felt the same way.

He was just as charming as Hosea in many ways, but he’d never seemed quite so genuine to her. Like she had done something to offend him, but he was too polite to say anything. Except she also had her doubts that he was too polite to say anything.

“It ain’t his money or his big words that interest me, Reverend.” Hosea didn’t have any real money, she was fairly certain of that. He had was still sending her gifts, and expensive ones that her father loved almost as much, if not more, than she did. She was just fairly certain that the money being used to pay for them, if they were being paid for at all, was stolen. “It’s just… him.”

The Reverend just smiled and patted her shoulder. “Don’t you worry about that, Miss Bessie. Time and good sense rights all things, in the end. You’re a good girl, and the Lord watches over you. It sounds to me like this Mr. Carmichael has been presented to you as a temptation, but do not allow yourself to be lured in if that is what you fear. Greed and lust are powerful enemies to fight, but you are above such temptations.” He looked at her sympathetically, as though he understood, though Bessie sensed he was more circling around her worries without actually settling on them. “The men in town might not be so flashy or exciting, but they’re as good as any other. What’s bright and beautiful may be more eye-catching, but it is rarely safe for one’s virtue.”

Bessie nodded, holding eye contact with him as she feigned interest. “Thank you, Reverend. I will keep that in mind.” She hoped she sounded sincere when she said it, and she must have, because the Reverend patted her hands one last time and then moved on to the next parishioner.

He wasn’t  _ wrong _ , she supposed. He just wasn’t right either.

She sighed and stood, gathering her skirts and flicking her golden curled over her shoulder as she headed for the door to the makeshift Church that the Reverend had slowly been making improvements too. He had painted the walls and started working on repairing some of the older pews, making things a little more modern in recent years. He wasn’t an old man, like their last Reverend had been, and he had been making a good effort to improve the Church’s presence in their small town. She wished Hosea would join her there, at least for appearances sake, but he always had an excuse not to go.

This time it was that he had to prepare for their meeting that evening, on Sunday of all days, with her father and the rest of the town’s businessmen.

_ I just wish I knew what they were up to _ . She at least wanted to give her father some kind of warning about it. Though how one could explain ‘I don’t think you should trust the man who dotes on me, your only daughter, who I have not turned away despite my misgivings’ without it ringing hollow?  _ There has to be a way to warn him off without sending Hosea away… _

“Why hello there, Miss Bessie.”

She glanced to her side as she walked out of the church, where Mr. Wilcox stood, lounging against the building with the paper tucked under his arm. He looked exceedingly pleased with himself for finding her – though Bessie couldn’t imagine she’d be hard to find on a Sunday morning in a small town.

“Mr. Wilcox,” she said, bowing her head politely before she continued to walk.

He had clearly been expecting her to stop, because he stumbled in his efforts to follow after her, walking down the rickety stairs of the Church as he caught up with her. “May I walk you home? I didn’t expect to find you here unaccompanied…” The ‘by Mr. Carmichael’ was left hanging, unsaid but heard none the less.

“Yes, Mr. Carmichael has to prepare for his business meeting with you gentlemen tonight, and father was looking over our books for the same reason. I’m surprised that you aren’t doing the same, if I’m being honest.” Bessie said, hoping the implication that Mr. Wilcox should be doing work would send him away.

“Oh, it’s the Lord’s day, Miss Bessie. I wouldn’t presume to work today, except for hosting this meeting tonight with the gentlemen in town.” Mr. Wilcox said, straightening his tie. “You know, Miss, I never did think you would be the type to overlook a gentleman such as myself in favor of an outside with money. Though I think all of us who offered proposals to your father were a little surprised to see someone like Mr. Carmichael taking an interest in a small town girl at all.”

Bessie chose not to dignify that with an answer.

“Course a big city man like him looking at a small town country girl like you, all wide-eyed and innocent… I suppose I can see the appeal.” Mr. Wilcox said, smiling devilishly at her and offering his arm to escort her. “Virgin flowers just waiting to bloom. I bet he don’t see much of that where he’s from.”

Bessie felt her knuckles crack as she clasped her hands in front of her and didn’t acknowledge the offered arm.

“I highly doubt that, seeing as Mr. Carmichael is a perfect gentleman. He and I just enjoy sharing civil conversation, since that is so hard to find these days. I can’t, if I’m being perfectly honest Mr. Wilcox, imagine a single thing more flattering than a man who can hold a civil conversation, don’t you agree?” She asked, staring straight ahead and trying to sound as sweet as she did when she sold him tinned goods in the store, and his hand always lingered a little too long, and his eyes always dipped a little too low.

“Of course, of course,” Mr. Wilcox continued his own train of thought, “I personally can only imagine that, if Mr. Carmichael were to be serious about his relationship with you, that he would want to invest the bank’s money in your father’s store, would he not? A well to do store would make an excellent dowry for a simple country girl like you, to a big city banker like him.”

“I couldn’t possibly speculate on something like that, being just a simple country girl.” Bessie smiled sweetly, and contemplated what a tragedy for the town it would be if Mr. Wilcox fell from his horse and broke his neck.

“Of course not. Better for you to focus on making yourself pretty for him, so he’s not tempted by any of them girls at the saloon. I checked around though, and seeing as how he and Mr. Chambers haven’t visited, I figure you’ve got good Mr. Carmichael wrapped right around your… finger.” Mr. Wilcox said, standing immediately next to her so that she could practically feel him against her skin.

“Well,” Bessie said, stepping away from him but trying to keep her pace even. She could feel her heart speeding up, but he wouldn’t scare her into running away. He hadn’t even threatened her, but his very presence made her feel ill. “Mr. Carmichael has said he intends to be fair. I ain’t expecting no special treatment for my daddy.”

Mr. Wilcox had first proposed to her when she was fifteen, and her father – bless him – had agreed when she’d said no, even though he’d seemed disappointed. But Mr. Wilcox made her skin crawl, and every word he spoke sounded like a veiled insult or a threat when it came to her. And against other men, he always seemed more like a feral dog begging for scraps – and ready to bite if he didn’t have his way.

“Oh, you wouldn’t expect special treatment because you don’t know your way around a man’s heart, Miss Bessie.” Mr. Wilcox said, “I do like how innocent you still are. But I think we do both know that Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Chambers won’t be investing in every business in town. And not all of us have a temptation as sweet as you to offer up in trade like your daddy does.” He stepped in front of her, cutting her off and leaning in to block her from walking forward. “It’d be in your best interest, and your daddy’s, if you were a good little lady and told Mr. Carmichael to not only look at the general store.”

Bessie’s heart pounded against her chest, and she clasped her hands in front of her, pressing her broken fingernail hard and hoping the pain would keep her alert. But he was threatening her. Threatening her  _ daddy _ , who had been nothing but kind to every man, woman and child in town because he was too good natured to ever do otherwise. But Mr. Wilcox and those like him never did measure anything by the good a person did. Only by what slighted them.

And Bessie was not as kind as her daddy.

“I will talk to Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Wilcox. On your behalf, I promise you.” She said, meeting her eyes the same way she’d met the Reverend’s, though this time she was shaking. “I am sure he will give you everything he believes you deserve, regardless of my input.”

Mr. Wilcox smiled, leaning in and brushing one of her curls back over her shoulder, overly familiar as he leaned in close. “I am so happy to hear that, Miss Bessie. And when he discards you… know I will always be there to pick you up again. Spoilt or not.”

Bessie didn’t move, feeling paralyzed with him standing beside her. She wanted to believe it was bravery that kept her staring into his eyes, but if she were being honest she was desperately afraid of what would happen if she looked away, even standing in the middle of the street in broad daylight.

“I will keep that in mind, Mr. Wilcox.” She said, relieved that at least her voice sounded unphased.

“Glad to hear it, Miss Bessie.” Mr. Wilcox said, turning away from her and heading back towards his hotel.

She followed after him with her gaze, and let out a long sigh of relief when she saw Hosea standing on the porch outside, speaking with Mr. Chambers, who was in the process of tying his horse outside. She supposed he had just arrived back.

Bessie waited a moment longer for Mr. Wilcox to go inside, and took her time observing Hosea and his partner. She couldn’t hear what they were discussing exactly, but they did stop talking the moment Mr. Wilcox same close, watching him like a hawk before they turned back to each other and kept talking, giving him only the acknowledgement of tipping their hats as he walked smugly past them. They barely even considered the man who walked past them, unphased and unbothered by his presence, not seeing him as she did.

They weren’t afraid of him. Or, she assumed, any man.  _ Lord, I’m sorry but that I do envy that. _ And that, of all things, gave her a sudden frightening idea.

She lighted her lips and walked forward, gathering her skirts and moving around the side of the hotel, hoping to stay out of sight of any windows Mr. Wilcox might be looking out of, and getting closer to Hosea and Mr. Chambers. She could hear them speaking softly, though she could only make out small pieces of what they actually said.

“…put me in an awkward position, Dutch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you know I’m right…” Mr. Chamber’s voice was blocked out by the neighing of his horse, “…and besides all that, you’re getting out of practice.”

“I don’t want Bessie getting hurt in all this…” The butcher yelled something down the street about a sale of some sort, and she would have to note to stop by later with them, though Hosea’s words caught her attention a little more. She wondered if he could see her.

“If she knows what we’re about here, maybe we should-”

“No, I will not just-”

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Bessie said, clearing her throat as she came around Mr. Chamber’s horse.

Mr. Chambers himself glanced back over his shoulder, and his face had a brief moment where it looked as though he had smelled something particularly foul before he managed to hide it, putting on the same pleasantness he showed everyone else. “My dear Miss Smith, a pleasure to see you as always.”

Hosea leaned towards her from the porch, his worried look breaking into a smile and he relaxed against the railing. “I thought you’d still be in church, but I’m always happy to see you Miss Bessie.”

“A pleasure to see you both.” Bessie said, smiling at Hosea and trying to put on at least a pleasant face for Mr. Chambers. Or was it Dutch? “And a warm welcome back to town, Mr. Chambers. You will have to stop by the store, I’ll make up something fresh just for you.”

“Well, I do so appreciate that Miss. You do know how to make a man feel welcome.” Mr. Chambers said, with the same politeness she’d seen him offer everyone in town, and not a hint of whatever distain her had for her.

“Of course, any friend of Mr. Carmichael is welcome in the store any time.” Bessie said, doing her best to ignore the brief look Mr. Chambers gave Hosea, which she could only think of as uncannily smug. “I am sorry, Hosea may I borrow you for just a moment? I had something I wanted to speak with you about. It won’t take but a moment.”

Hosea brightened, seeming to take her smile as an improvement in her mood from their previous discussion. Which she supposed was the case, just not in the way he would be expecting.

“Certainly, sorry Mr. Chambers, it will just be a moment. Be sure to take your things up to the room yourself.” Hosea glanced over his shoulder at the hotel, around the general direction of where Mr. Wilcox might be sitting. “It would be a real shame if anything went missing.”

Mr. Chambers snorted, taking his saddle back from the horse. “Believe you me, I’ll keep an eye on things. Mr. Carmichael, Miss Smith.” He needed, his gaze lingering on Hosea for a moment before he stepped away.

“Now, whatever can I do for you?” Hosea asked, offering Bessie his arm, which she took gently, hoping that her hands had stopped trembling.

Bessie stepped away from the hotel, guiding Hosea with her and trying to think through what she was about to ask of him. Something which could not more possibly be the wrong thing to ask of him, and which would surely be a great disappointment to the Reverend and her father.

“It’s… I need to ask you to do something for me.” Bessie said, looking around them to make sure they weren’t being watched. Which, unfortunately, they were, but everyone was far enough away that they wouldn’t be listening in. “I don’t pretend to know exactly what it is you’re planning or how it would work… but you’ve promised you won’t let my daddy get hurt, and I’m trusting you on that.”

Hosea listened, nodding thoughtfully as she spoke. “You have my word.”

“This ain’t so much about that,” Bessie said, looking at the flowers blowing in the horizon that she’d once found so calming. There was a storm coming though, she could almost taste the moisture on the wind. She hoped she wasn’t the one inviting it in. “It’s about Mr. Wilcox.”

Hosea paused, just for a moment and not long enough to hold them up. “What about Mr. Wilcox?”

There was still time, she knew. She could say nothing. Do nothing. Or better yet, just tell Hosea about Mr. Wilcox’s threat and let him do whatever he wanted with that information.

Except somehow, that felt weak. Like it would just prove to Hosea that she was everything that everyone in the town thought she was.

“Whatever it is you’re planning with the rest of them,” Bessie said, taking a deep breath, “make sure it happens to him. Whatever the worst of it is.”

Hosea did stop at that, carefully maneuvering her around him so that he could look at her. “Bessie, it’s not a good idea to let personal feelings get involved with this kind of thing, and worse still for you to get overly involved. It’s-”

“Hosea,” Bessie said, leaning in and kissing him, holding his chin and letting his face rest against hers, “please just do this one thing for me. I want that man out of my life. And if you don’t… if you don’t ruin him with whatever this scheme of yours is, he will come after you. Please.”

Hosea nodded slowly, his hand on her cheek as he leaned in and kissed her softly. “Did he do something to you, Bessie?”

Bessie pinched over her broken nail again, shaking her head. “It don’t matter. What matters to me is that he doesn’t have the chance to hurt you.” Or her father. Or anyone else. “I can’t put this on my daddy, and I still trust you even though I shouldn’t. So please just… do this. For me.”

“I will.” Hosea said, sealing the deal with a kiss. “He won’t be able to cause any trouble once I’m done with him. I promise you that.”

Bessie felt her shoulders relax, and she leaned in, letting herself fall into Hosea’s arms. It felt safe and right, even though she felt a cold terror waiting for her on the other side of things.

_ Oh Lord, what have I done _ ?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed my interpretation of Bessie!
> 
> Special thanks to my fabulous beta Airis, who continues to guide me through shitty grammar decisions and encourages me every step of the way <3
> 
> Questions? Concerns? Want to talk about how much research I did to try and figure out how 19th century Christianity worked and what early women's rights were like? Come find me either at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or over on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee


	5. The Plan (Alternatively, Step One)

Hosea was in his element from the moment drinks were served. Not that he was paying for them; he had Dutch twisting Mr. Wilcox around his pinkie to thank for that, but Hosea was the one who orchestrated the rest. Who choreographed the little song and dance number.

“Oh, and Mr. Goodsir, how has your business been going?”

“Oh, and Mr. Miller, you have to understand, Deputy Skelton there has made a generous donation in favor of us choosing him… to prove his capital, you understand.”

“Oh, and Deputy Skelton, you have to understand that Mr. Goodsir has told us he’ll be transferring his funds to our bank in short order… Well, yes, if we were to invest we would need the money to be with us. I’m sure you understand.”

It was so  _ easy _ .

“You really do know how to make a man feel special, huh, Mr. Carmichael?” Mr. Smith said, with things winding down, most of the partygoers drunk. The agreements and arrangements made. And Bessie’s father just grinned from ear to ear, like he’d witnessed a miracle from on high. “I can’t help but notice you haven’t asked me for anything yet.”

“Now, now, Mr. Smith, you can’t readily expect me to ask you for anything. I’m not meant to show any favoritism, but I can’t exactly help that I love your daughter a great deal,” Hosea said, knowing this was a fine line to walk in order to keep his agreement with Bessie. Mr. Smith wasn’t an idiot, he was just honest.

Liars expected other people to be liars – that motives like greed and lust and pride were the only ruling powers in other people. It made them predictable, and easy. And, unfortunately for Hosea, that included him on more than one occasion. Which caused problems with someone like Mr. Smith.

“Ah, so that’s what you’d want for my business at your bank? My daughter’s hand?” Mr. Smith laughed, clearly pulling Hosea’s leg - but with another man that would be the exact kind of thing Hosea might have asked for. Not a wife, specifically, that would  _ also  _ cause problems.

“No, no, Mr. Smith, I can’t ask you for anything  _ what _ so ever,” Hosea said, holding up his hands and stepping back. “Bessie would never forgive me if I made you do something you weren’t comfortable with, and her happiness just means the world to me.”

“Oh, it ain’t a matter of comfort Mr. Smith, my Bessie trusts you and so I do too. She’s always had a good nose for trustworthiness, my Bessie. But she also loves a little bit of trouble, and I can’t fault her for that.” He chuckled, elbowing Hosea fondly. Like he was already Mr. Smith’s son-in-law.

_ Bessie is not going to take kindly to the way this is going _ .

“But I trust you ain’t gunna make any trouble for my Bessie?” Mr. Smith said, giving Hosea a somewhat meaningful look over his drink.

Hosea swirled the alcohol in his glass, glancing towards Dutch who had the local Sheriff and Mr. Wilcox wrapped around his finger with some grandiose tale or other. Dutch smiled, taking the slice from an apple and chewing the edges, small dribbles of juice falling down his chin, sliding from between his lips. He wiped it absently with his thumb, but he caught Hosea’s eyes. He flashed his devilish grin, putting his thumb in his mouth and licking the juice off it, like he was reading Hosea’s mind. Parts of Hosea’s mind that he couldn’t be thinking about while he was working the room.

It shouldn’t have been a contest, Dutch against Bessie, but it was – and it seemed like they were both becoming aware of that.

Hosea knew he couldn’t stay. Not realistically. He couldn’t go straight. But…

But.

“Mr. Smith, I’d never hurt Bessie. Not on your life, or mine,” Hosea swore, being honest with someone other than Dutch or Bessie for the first time in years. So of course, he stupidly followed up with, “I actually wanted to discuss something other than business about that. Because I think you know by now that I love her, and I’d like to ask her hand. And I know with everything else here… it ain’t fair to the other businessmen in this town, because none of them have what I really want, which is the most wonderful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

Dutch was watching him from across the room. There was no way Dutch could hear him, no possible way, with the other men laughing and the shuffling of feet and drinks, but there was a dark look in Dutch’s eye and he wasn’t looking at either of the men he was talking to anymore.

He knew.

“So, I want you to know,” Hosea continued, not able to look at Mr. Smith. He couldn’t tear his eyes off of Dutch, and he could feel a chill, even though the other man’s smile hadn’t faded away and he kept nodding and speaking to the other men he was with.  _ He knows _ . “I… that is, I want you to know, regardless of if you say I’ve permission to ask her, I won’t ask for anything from you one way or the other. You say no, I’ll still take your business well into consideration. Because all I want is her happiness, which I think is also your happiness, so…”

He tore his eyes away from Dutch and back to Mr. Smith, taking a deep breath, even though he felt hot under his collar. Like Dutch was clawing into his chest, gnawing at his stomach. Warning him.  _ We’re going to rob these people – you are not going to be able to stay. They will hang you. _

“Oh, Mr. Carmichael,” Mr. Smith clapped Hosea on his back, knocking him out of his stupor, “I’ve seen Bessie fawning over you for long enough now to know she’s head over heels. You ask her and she says yes? You’ll hear no complaints from me. Glad to hear you want to make an honest woman out of her, and I am more than happy to do business with you.”

Hosea laughed, though he sounded as nervous as he felt, which was never a good sign in his experience. Excusable in the circumstances, but only just. “Well, guess I’ll have to find her a decent ring then. That’ll be my next step, I think. Don’t go giving away my intentions in the meanwhile, I want to surprise her.”

A hand gripped his shoulder, and it wasn’t Mr. Smith’s - this one came from behind. Dutch.

“Well now, Mr. Smith, I know you and Mr. Carmichael have plenty to talk about, but I can’t have you stealing him from me all night,” Dutch said, smiling from ear to ear as he leaned in, making himself known. “He telling you all about the opportunities the bank is willing to provide here in Nightingale, or just reminding you that you have the most charming woman he’s ever met for a daughter?”

The grip tightened, though Dutch’s voice betrayed nothing.

“Oh, I don’t need reminding. My late wife would have been so proud to see her. Always told myself she was destined for greater things, and it seems like I was right about that.” Mr. Smith beamed, and Hosea tried to think of a way he could mentally project the need to  _ keep it quiet _ , but Mr. Smith did not get the silent mental message. “To think, a fancy banker’s wife.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” and there was the edge of betrayal in Dutch’s voice, “yes, who’d have thought he’d have found her way out here. Well, it’s her to thank for everything that’s going to happen here. Civilization charging forward and breathing new life into the land. Yes, indeed. Never would have fallen for this town if not for your sweet Bessie.”

“Mr. Chambers, a moment?” Hosea said, smiling at Mr. Smith and trying to keep the pained expression that was trying to get out tucked safely elsewhere. “So sorry to cut our conversation short, just need to make sure we’ve spoken to everyone.”

“Of course, of course,” Mr. Smith said, smiling wide, hands on his hips and looking like he’d just about been crowned the new King of Nightingale. “Don’t want to get in the way of anything, business is business, don’t have to tell me twice.”

Hosea steered Dutch away, keeping his expression friendly, but anyone who overheard his voice would hear a very different tone. “I won’t hear a word of it.”

“You won’t hear a word of it  _ now _ . I know how to behave, Hosea, I’m not a child,” Dutch said, smiling right back, his voice carrying the same strained politeness. “Just curious about how  _ you _ want this to play out. Because it seems a little late if you want to settle down and play house with Miss Smith. We’re going to have cash in hand before the week is out. I may have gone overboard with us even needing to get a ‘letter of confirmation’ from the bank. We’ve spent so much time here, they’ll believe anything we tell them.”

“Hush,” Hosea said, glancing around to make sure no one was listening - but it appeared most of the party-goers were too drunk to be paying them too much mind by then. Mr. Wilcox was watching, but he was caught in a conversation with the Sheriff that he couldn’t seem to get out of. “I have a plan, Dutch. Just had to come up with some on the fly, taking into account that you couldn’t stay patient.”

He had no plan.

“Well, thanks to me, we have some money coming in, and free room and board for a while now asMr. Wilcox sorts out his details for us. So, as far as I can tell,  _ I _ have a plan, and you’re too busy chasing a skirt to give a damn about how we will be eating a month from now,” Dutch said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“Mr. Smith won’t stay on our case now, and he won’t shut up about the idea of a wedding, so now everyone in town will be thinking we’re in for the long haul,” Hosea said logically, as though he were not coming up with this particular line of thought on the spot. “It’ll buy us some time, maybe get us some wedding presents while we’re at it, and no one’s gunna think twice about why we’re here or what our plans are.”

“How heartless of you, Hosea,” Dutch said blandly, taking a cigar from the table beside them and putting it between his teeth. “So what’re you going to do after we’re done here? Because in that plan, your dearly beloved Bessie will be left holding the bag.”

“I…” Hosea trailed off, watching as Mr. Smith spoke with Mr. Miller, getting clapped on the back in congratulations as clearly the news began to spread. “I will figure that out. She hasn’t said yes yet, and she may not, on account of being on to us and our situation.”

“Oh, she’ll say yes, Hosea,” Dutch said, lighting a match and holding it against his cigar, waving it out absently as he breathed in the smoke. “No one who loves you knows how to say no to you.”

Hosea barked a laugh, rolling his eyes and taking the cigar out of Dutch’s mouth. He needed it more. “Including you, Mr.  _ Chambers _ ?”

Dutch watched him for a moment, his look softening more than Hosea would have expected from the jab at his pride. “Especially me, Hosea.”

Then he turned and headed into the small crowd, leaving Hosea alone with his thoughts, and the faint taste of apples and cigar smoke on his lips.

~~

Hosea avoided Dutch as best he could over the next few hours of the party, as everyone got progressively drunker and Hosea got progressively more sober. He tried his best to keep his mind occupied on other things, but that he’d managed to shove his foot so far up his ass it kept edging its way to the forefront.

“ _ Especially me, Hosea _ .”

How was he meant to take that? How was anyone? He knew Dutch was unconventional, that he shirked the rules and wouldn’t have cared what society thought. Hosea was no idiot, he knew how other people looked on that kind of thing. He’d lived in the theatre long enough to know that it happened, and he’d had his moments, but it had been a while… And Dutch said a lot of things. He talked big.

He came close, with his big dreams and his big words, exuding his charisma, wrapping Hosea up in his dreams, and how could he say no, really? He offered so many of the things Hosea wanted. Dreamed about. Freedom. Real freedom.

_ He thinks he’s the hero of an opera. _ Which almost made Hosea laugh as he watched the last of their guests leave, leaving Mr. Wilcox lay passed out from too much drink on the couch.

Dutch shook hands, clapped the other men on the back, escorted them out - until, at last, it was just the two of them. Something that hadn’t made Hosea uncomfortable since the first night he’d actually fallen asleep next to Dutch and had nightmares about having his throat slit.

What would Dutch do to make Hosea stay? He’d already forced Hosea’s hand once. And now Hosea had wrapped Bessie up in things by his own misjudgements. He couldn’t hurt Mr. Smith financially, and Bessie was the easy in. If he hadn’t cared about her at all, it would have been like pulling a marionette on a string.

Except then he pictured her smile, the touch of her fingers, her incredulous looks when he lied to her, like she could see right through every word. When she chastised him like she’d caught a child with his fingers in a pie.

Society. Stability. Bessie who came with the complete package – and he’d already thrown it away. There would be no putting Dutch off. No saving his situation. He would have to leave her. He’d made his choice without meaning to when he’d asked Mr. Smith if he could have his daughter’s hand. By even entertaining Dutch’s plan in the first place.

But. He couldn’t. Help it.

He was so good at it.

“Well, I’d call that evening a roaring success. Looks like we’ll be eating for at least another week,” Dutch said, closing the door and glancing at Mr. Wilcox. “He’ll be out for the rest of the night, almost certainly. Now’s as good a time as any to start deciding what we can take from him, hm?”

Hosea watched him carefully, measuring how prepared Dutch was to act as though nothing had happened. To pretend that Bessie didn’t matter, that it was fine to ruin her life and her father’s. But to Dutch, why would they be any different? No one had mattered before.

“Dutch, we need to decide how we’re going to play this,” Hosea said, going for neutral ground.

“How else? Got a letter coming at the end of the week that Mr. Wilcox will probably read before either of us see it,” Dutch said, going to the hotel’s front desk and rummaging under it for anything of value. “Anyone who’s holding out will see something that fancy and fork out their funds for transport to the bank. We’ll say we’re holding it here for the bank coach, make Mr. Wilcox give us the combination for his safe as a guarantee, and then once it’s all in one place and ready to go, we flee. Now, thanks to you, we can slot a wedding in there somewhere. No one will ask any questions.”

“Except why we didn’t take any of Mr. Smith’s money,” Hosea said, as though it was obvious.

Dutch raised an eyebrow. “Hardly the first wedding scam that’s ever been attempted. Just take back all the gifts you gave her, have your way with her, and then no one will look twice.”

Hosea felt the hair on the back of his neck raise. “Except that she’s a decent woman in this town, and not a whore, Dutch. It’ll ruin her. Even if I don’t marry her, this will  _ ruin _ her.” He kept his voice down, not wanting to wake Mr. Wilcox – though he doubted anything would do that now.

He couldn’t lose his temper with Dutch.

“Well, Hosea, maybe you ought to have thought of that before you asked that she marry you,” Dutch said, stepping up into him and looking him dead in the eye. “Tell her to say no. We can just rob her instead, if that makes things easier for you. But we ain’t staying here, Hosea. Especially not now.”

We.

“No, guess we can’t stay, since you forced my hand as you did. Just had to rile up the entire town,” Hosea said, crossing his arms.

“We  _ need _ money, Hosea. I do not want to have this conversation again,” Dutch said, throwing up his hands. “We lied to everyone the moment we showed up, enough games. If you really want this over with, have your fun with Bessie and then  _ I’ll  _ deal with things-”

“Dutch, if anything happens to her, I swear,” Hosea said, standing over him, “that’ll be the end of this partnership. Any foul play with her, you hear me? Even if I only suspect it. I’ll believe you did it.” His chest was almost pressed against Dutch’s, and he could still smell the alcohol and tobacco on his breath.

_ No one who loves you knows how to say no to you _ . Even furious with Dutch as he was, he knew he was right about some things. But he wouldn’t let Bessie get hurt because of his mistakes.

Dutch clenched his fists, saying nothing, his lip curling into almost a sneer. Like he might say something he was going to regret. Something Hosea didn’t want him to say. No ultimatums. No threats. No  _ if I can’t have you, no one can _ .

He didn’t want to leave Dutch.

“So if you love me,  _ don’t _ .” Hosea said, reaching down and taking Dutch’s clenched fist in his hand, tightening around his fingers, feeling the calluses and lacing them in his grip. “Please, Dutch. It’s just a dream I want to live in. Just for a little while longer. Just… don’t, with her. It doesn’t mean anything different for you and me.”

Dutch didn’t move - except for his fist, which unclenched in Hosea’s hand. His hand turned to take Hosea’s, moving up to take his wrist, and he pulled him in, rather than pushing him away. He reached up with his free hand, pressing it against Hosea’s cheek, the warmth of his palm so close to his lips that he could have touched Dutch with his tongue.

Really tasted him.

“I want you to live in my dream, Hosea,” Dutch said, looking him straight in the eye. “I can make it real. I can make America what it’s  _ meant _ to be. But I can’t do it without you, don’t you feel that too? Don’t leave me. This matters too much for us to walk away from each other now. Not over some backwater town and some girl. Don’t walk away from me.”

“Then it’s easy. Leave her alone, and I will not leave you, Dutch,” Hosea said, raising his hand and putting it over Dutch’s, so close and intimate now that it sent shivers down his spine. He hated how much he wanted Dutch to mean it when he said he loved him. Not a platonic love between men, or even camaraderie he had never had. He wanted more than that. For Dutch to love him like Hosea loved Bessie. Perhaps it was greed, Hosea had always been greedy, but he didn’t care. He was a conman and a thief. He had given himself permission long ago to take what he wanted – but all of that had changed now that he  _ cared _ . About Bessie. About Dutch. About two people who weren’t him, and gave him a vision of life without being alone.

Why did it have to be the two of them at the same time? Why could he not have simply met one, and not the other?  _ Because that would have been easy, and God has found a perfect punishment for your sins, Hosea Matthews _ .

“I don’t  _ want _ to go, either. You and me? We feel right. Don’t ever forget that I’m on your side,” Hosea said, his voice quieting as he held tight to Dutch. But then, how many rules would Dutch really be willing to break? “You say it’s hard to say no to me, because you love me. It’s no different for me with you. I believe in you, Dutch. I love you. Hard not to.”

All of the rules. He would break every single one for Dutch, he knew that. But even when men broke rules like murdering and thieving their way across the country, there were lines they wouldn’t cross with what other men might think of them. Love was a weakness, to some of them. Hell, to Hosea, love was a weakness. Loving Bessie was costing him, and loving Dutch was… They were both asking for trouble.

Being alone was easier. But it had been killing him all the same, he realized now.

Dutch’s lips parted slightly, and he hesitated over whatever he had been about to say next, mulling it over before his thumb brushed over Hosea’s lips. “I don’t want to make a mistake, Hosea. But I-” He hesitated again, then he leaned in and pressed his lips against Hosea’s. His hand shifted, holding Hosea’s head in place so he couldn’t pull back – even if he had wanted to.

And he didn’t want to.

Dutch didn’t kiss like Bessie did. His lips were rough, demanding, and his hands were firm when they curled in Hosea’s fine hair. When he realized Hosea wasn’t fighting his touch, he stepped in closer, maneuvering Hosea against the wall and pressing his body against him. Vaguely, Hosea hoped Mr. Wilcox was still passed out. His loud snores from the other room assuaged his fears, at least, though Dutch’s intense demand for Hosea’s attention distracted Hosea from further consideration. Dutch let go of Hosea’s hand, moving his arm around his waist to hold him, even as his lips crushed against him, nose sliding down his cheek like he was planning on swallowing him. A younger man’s kiss.

“ _ Dutch- _ ” Hosea managed to breathe his name, grabbing Dutch’s longer hair and yanking him back a moment - though Dutch resisted a fair bit. Hosea pulled harder, and Dutch’s head pulled back, but he pressed his hips against him instead.

Hard. Hosea could feel him through his pants, and Dutch doubtlessly wanted him to know.  _ I want you _ . Every part of Dutch told him that story. And it told him the other story – that Dutch had been just as jealous, if not moreso, of Bessie than he had been afraid that Hosea would leave him for her.

Hosea tightened his grip, looking Dutch directly in the eye, shaking him firmly to make certain he was paying attention. “ _ Dutch _ . This ain’t the place for this, you know that. And there’s…” He struggled to find the right words for it. “I know you don’t much care for the rules, but this is-”

Dutch’s expression changed briefly, from desire to something darker, “This is  _ what _ , Hosea? A line a man isn’t meant to cross? A law that who,  _ God _ , placed over us? To do what? To tell us we cannot take whatever we want whenever we want it?” He smiled, reaching down between Hosea’s legs and pressing his palm against him.

Hosea hadn’t been uninterested, his cock already stirring with interest at the prospect of what Dutch might do – might let  _ him _ do. He’d done the polite societal dance with Bessie, but with Dutch…

“ _ We _ are partners, Hosea,” Dutch said, a smile creeping onto his face. “We can be partners in every way, and who is going to stop us?  _ Society _ ? No. America is a land of  _ freedom _ . No rules. No society. Nothing to hold us back. You want… you want  _ Bessie _ , fine. Take her.” His smile grew wider, as though he were the first man to conceive of whatever idea he was having. “But no one’s to say you and I are not made for each other. I know we are.”

How many wives had Hosea’s father had? He wasn’t sure. He knew the man had about a dozen families, and that his mother had always resented him for it. Hated that he would run off and leave his family like that.

Hosea had envied him. He’d envied the idea of a life where a man could do whatever he wanted.

“I don’t think you’re wrong, Dutch,” Hosea said, taking his wrist and gently pushing his hand back. “But I just…”

He thought of Bessie and her smile. And of her pleading that he not ruin her life or her father’s life. They would have to leave, he knew that. Right now. That was the only way to save her completely. Abandon the plan entirely, and start over again in a new town. That was the best option. The  _ only _ option. He had Dutch, and Dutch loved him. He wouldn’t be alone.

“ _ Hosea _ ?” His heart seized and he closed his eyes. He would have to let her go. That would protect her. That was the selfless thing to do. Walk away, never look back. Let himself just be a thrill she had once.

Then he glanced into the other room, where Mr. Wilcox was still blissfully passed out on his couch.  _ I did promise her I would destroy him _ .

And he had never been a selfless man.

“We’ll keep on task with the plan. Let me just… sort out what I’m going to do with Bessie, alright?” Hosea said, maneuvering himself around Dutch, who barely concealed the look of pure disappointment when he pulled away. “Let me sort that out… then I’ll sort us out, alright?”

“But I…” Dutch’s hands drooped slightly. “I said I don’t care about her, Hosea. You can do whatever you like with her. Bring her with us, leave her, kidnap her, I don’t care, just-”

“I  _ know _ , Dutch,” Hosea said, going to the stairs and scratching the back of his head where he could still feel the imprints left by Dutch’s thick fingers grabbing his hair. And he did want him. He  _ burned _ for him. But he wasn’t ready to let Bessie go yet. And he wasn’t going to stick her with the life his mother had lived either. “I need some time to think. I just… just some time. Not no. Just time.”

“Right,” Dutch said, smoothing his hands down his pants, though Hosea could see they were shaking. “Right, just… time. I understand. Yes, I… I think I understand. These things take time.” He took his cigarette case from his pants, pressing his thumb against the metal so hard that Hosea thought he might snap his nail clean in half. “You get some rest, old man. I’m going to go think about some things myself.”

Hosea watched him go, and hoped none of those things involved making a decision they would both regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy time got away from me. I'm so sorry for everyone who's been patiently waiting for an update, I lost all concept of time even before the outbreak situation happened. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll try and be a bit more on the ball in terms of monthly updates.
> 
> Stay safe out there everyone!
> 
> Special thank you to my Beta, Risk, who put up with my whining about how hard writing is.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Just feel like chatting? Find me on tumblr at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com/, or over on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee.


	6. Far From Society

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said it'd be a month. From the bottom of my heart: My bad.

**Chapter Six: Far From Society**

Bessie could hear her father softly singing as he let himself in and headed towards his bed, not checking to see if she was awake. As usual after drinking, he nodded off almost instantly, and so he didn’t notice as she crept from her bed and went to the window, where she could look down the street to the hotel and see what else was happening there.

The town’s most important men drifted out, some singing and others almost running, like they had something they needed to rush back home to consider. No one seemed upset, or to suspect that they had been duped as she knew they had been. Hosea and ‘Mr. Chambers’ working their magic, no doubt.

The thought that crossed her mind - ‘No one else can see past his smile’ - briefly made her smirk, but then she regained enough self control to slap the idea back into place where it belonged. She knew these men, even if she didn’t like most of them. They’d all been strung along on a lie, and there was a better chance than none at all that she was having the wool pulled over her eyes too.

_ He won’t be able to cause any trouble once I’m done with him. I promise you that. _ Hosea had given her some faith, just with those words, about Mr. Wilcox. But destroying one man wouldn’t solve all her problems, or absolve her guilt. Or protect her father, whose health she was most afraid for.

What would the town do to him, if they thought he’d known what Hosea and his partner were planning?

She was pulled out of the thought when she saw the so-called Mr. Chambers march out of the hotel, grab hold of his horse, and turn it straight out of town. There was no one awake to see him go, no one except her, as the rest of the men had made their way to their beds while she was lost in thought.

Where could Mr. Chambers possibly be riding to in the middle of the night? And where was Hosea?

Quickly she pulled her hair back and grabbed her shawl, opting not to take her lantern with her and avoid attention. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, as it so often did in these situations, and she walked softly down the stairs. She carried her boots with her, only putting them on once she’d made her way outside.

Not her finest presentation, but worry ate away the idea of modesty as she made her way down the short street to the hotel.  _ Why would he ride off on his own like that _ ?

She shivered in the cool night air, hugging the coarse wool shawl around her. She could hear an owl, somewhere in the distance, and wolves even further. Moths fluttering in the dark provided the barest impressions of motion in the corners of her eyes.

Bessie loved to be alone outside at night. Sometimes she would sit on her balcony in the dark for hours after other people had gone to sleep, when no one would bother her. Some nights the stars were so bright she could make out the town almost as well as she could during the day. She wondered, sometimes, how far into the night she could walk before it would swallow her whole.

She had always been afraid to go too far out, no matter how beautiful it was in the dark.

Once she reached the door of the hotel, she knocked softly, wondering if anyone would hear her, and why she had bothered to knock at all. Even late at night, the hotel was rarely actually closed. She moved to open the door, but just as her fingers brushed the knob, Hosea appeared in front of her, standing in the frame and looking at her sadly.

He didn’t look as bright and animated as he usually did - his shoulders were slumped and his hair was tousled, and there was a sullen expression on his usually pleasant face. She hadn’t known Hosea all that long, but she knew a man who’d had a bad night when she saw one. It seemed a little odd, considering what a good mood everyone else had been in.

Had he been fighting with Mr. Chambers?

“Bessie? Why did you…? Is everything alright?” Hosea asked, looking over her shoulder. “Your pappy went home, I’m sure I saw him-”

“No, I-” Bessie interrupted, not wanting to worry him any more than he clearly already was. “He’s fine. But I saw Mr. Chambers ride off in the middle of the night and I… I just worried that something happened. Wanted to make sure you were alright. That’s all.”

“It’s…” Hosea trailed off, looking out into the night over her shoulder, before he gently took her hand and led her inside. “You shouldn’t stand out there like that. It’s not… dignified. For you.”

Bessie stepped inside, glancing around the room, which was full of empty bottles and glasses. Mr. Wilcox was passed out on his couch, but otherwise it appeared that everyone else had made their way home.

“It’s late, no one would have noticed me,” Bessie said, suddenly aware of what it would look like if someone  _ had _ seen her. Her nightdress. Her shawl. Running to Hosea’s hotel room unaccompanied. It left her vulnerable, to say the least. “It’s sweet of you to worry, but I was more concerned about you, that’s all.”

“What? That Dutch would’ve-” Hosea stopped, catching himself on what Bessie knew Mr. Chambers’ real name was. “I promise, there ain’t a thing that Mr. Chambers can do to me. We just had a disagreement on certain things, that’s all.”

Bessie frowned, reaching out and touching Hosea’s cheek. It was a bad idea, she knew that much. For her to have come at all. There was enough talk about her already, and if anyone had seen her come in her nightdress, then her reputation was as good as doomed.

Yet, almost like a second sense, she’d felt in her gut that something was wrong. Mr. Chambers – Dutch – wasn’t someone she could pretend that she knew well, but people didn’t just ride out of town in the middle of the night for no reason. And Hosea didn’t look like himself. He looked… distracted, to say the least. Not quite distraught, but nowhere close to jovial.

“It was me, wasn’t it?” Bessie said, running her thumb over his cheek. “He doesn’t want you to…” To what? Do what she’d asked? Consider her feelings? Think about her at all? Plenty of options, and she couldn’t be sure if any of the assumptions were correct.

“Marry you,” Hosea said, filling in the gap for her, which stopped her in her tracks and made her retract her hand.

“Marry- Hosea,” she said, her hand hanging in the air and fingers curling together. “How do you expect that to work? You’re not…” She glanced over at the unconscious Mr. Wilcox, not trusting his level of cognizance enough to say everything that was on her mind. She took Hosea’s arm, guiding him into the parlor room and she hoped well out of earshot, just in case. “I don’t pretend to know everything about what’s going on here. I don’t. And I don’t want to know neither, so don’t tell me. I don’t want more things I’ve got to lie about. But if you want me to… to live happily ever after, or whatever else you’ve got in your mind from a penny dreadful, you’d best have some kind of  _ real _ plan and not a fantasy.” She could feel her voice starting to rise, rage temporarily taking the edge off her own fantasy.

Riding away with Hosea into the dark. No more Mr. Wilcox, or a town that didn’t want her any more than she wanted it.

Except then it meant that she would leave her father to the wolves. He would never survive the shame.

Hosea reached out and took her hand, pulling it to his lips, which pressed warmly against her fingers. She couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine when he touched her, or when his lips moved to her wrist. His nose ran across her flesh, and she very nearly dropped her shawl when she pulled away, and he stepped in.

“Marry me, Bessie,” Hosea said, his grip loose enough that she could have pulled away if she needed to - but she didn’t. “Stay with me.”

Bessie reached out and gripped his hand, tightening her fingers around his. She didn’t want to let go, despite her better judgement. “You know I can’t. There’s too much for me here-”

“Is there?” Hosea interrupted, his grip tightening for a moment to the point where it was almost painful. “I thought it could be. I thought it might be enough but it’s all just…” He stopped, seeing the look on Bessie’s face. He loosened his grip, stepping back. “I don’t know that I have it in me to follow the rules. Spent a long time not believing it was worth it. And what have they given you, Bessie?”

“A bed to sleep in every night, that I know will always be there?” Bessie said, pulling her wrist away and massaging it gently. “A father who loves me. A place I ain’t worried will burn down around me at any second. It ain’t the end of the world to stay in one place.” And she didn’t think Hosea would be able to, even if he hadn’t already backed them both into a corner they wouldn’t be able to get out of. “But I ain’t asking you to stay. I know you can’t. So don’t… don’t go saying foolish things like ‘marry me’ because I think I might just love you and I know I’ll have to-”

Hosea leaned in and kissed her, which startled her enough to make her slap him.

He made a soft ‘oof’ noise as his head moved aside, probably more than the force of the hit called for, and he held himself there for a moment before he stepped back. “You’re right, that was a mite uncalled for…”

Bessie held her own hand, stepping away and shaking her head. “No, it wasn’t… It was.” She paused, massaging her wrist. “Yes. Or. The kiss or the slap?”

“Can’t it be both?” Hosea said, a smile catching the edge of his lips. Then it slipped away, like ripples on a pond. “I’m sorry, Bessie. I really am. Feel like I’ve been saying that a lot lately. Or maybe it’s just the first time I’ve meant it for a long time.”

“Wish I’d never met you…” Bessie mumbled half-heartedly, reaching out and lightly running her fingers over where she’d slapped him. “But I guess I can’t un-meet you now, can I?”

“Sadly, no,” Hosea said, leaning into her touch. “I asked your father if I could marry you. That’s what Mr. Chambers and I were arguing about. And I’m tired of keeping things from you, but the less you know… probably the better.”

Bessie was half tempted to slap him again for being such a damn fool. Her daddy wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut, he’d be so excited. And no doubt sure she’d say yes, because why would she ever say no? She’d been besotted with Hosea since the moment he’d arrived in town.

Damn fool, indeed.

“I want better for you than this place, Bessie,” Hosea said quietly, leaning in and touching his forehead against hers, and this time she didn’t stop him when he kissed her, even though she still felt the same cold fury. It was just more for herself.

Stay. Marry well to some man who would take over her daddy’s store. Read about other people’s grand adventures. But be safe. Safe with her father in a place she knew full of people she mostly didn’t even like.

Maybe things would change. Maybe New Surry would get bigger, and Nightingale would as well, and they would see a brave new world in their own way. Maybe more women would come, people she could relate to. Maybe some man would come along who was like Hosea.

But she doubted it.

“I should go,” Bessie said, though she didn’t pull away from Hosea when his lips traced down her cheek to her neck. She could feel goosebumps rising on her skin, and a heavy lump forming in her stomach when Hosea raised his hand to her hip.

She wanted to stay. Grab him by the throat and hold him against her until he saw sense. Come up with some brilliant lie which would absolve him of the trouble he’d landed them in. Give him a way to be safe with her, far away from his troubled life…

Bessie pulled away, pushing his wrist away and shaking her head. “I should go,” she repeated.

Hosea stopped and stepped back, frowning deeply and looking away. “You said you didn’t want to be anyone’s regret, Bessie. I’ve never cared one way or the other until now… but I don’t want you to regret meeting me. I don’t want that at all. But I don’t think I’m going to be getting out of this without at least one person I love hating me.”

Bessie sighed, pulling her shawl over her shoulders. “I hope that ain’t true, Hosea. I really hope it ain’t.”

~~

Dutch leaned on the back of his stallion, The Duke, staring down at Nightingale and running his encounter with Hosea over and over again in his mind, trying to find a new angle to view it from. Ultimately, he wouldn’t have called it a failure.

_ Not no. Just time _ .

In one week, there was every chance that Bessie would no longer be his problem, and then he could focus on keeping Hosea… Keeping him what? Just to keep him?

Dutch sighed, lighting his cigarette and blowing smoke, wishing he had a decent pipe. He just needed to get things back on the right track. He’d started that, but he needed to finish it. Which meant he needed two things. A bank coach and someone to drive it. Normally he and Hosea could have split up, taken on two different angles themselves, but. He’d risked plenty by bringing in Uncle on the situation, but he wasn’t sure he could trust the man to complete something as intensive as a coach job.

Idly he found himself thinking about Bessie. It was no good to think about her as an impediment. Hosea had said they’d be done if something happened to her, and he believed him. So, how could he use Bessie?

He’d thought of women before and how they might be useful in a con. He wasn’t sure how far Bessie would be willing to go, but he couldn’t make use of her for the bank coach. Maybe for their exit, if things went wrong. She would make for a decent ‘hostage’, which Hosea wouldn’t like, but…

Dutch sighed, reaching up and touching his lips where he’d kissed Hosea. He could still taste the whiskey and tobacco, and feel the heat from his passionate response to him. What could Bessie offer Hosea that Dutch couldn’t? Besides the ‘acceptable’ option. Acceptable.

The  _ traditional _ thing to do. Wife. House. Children.

Children.

Dutch clucked his tongue staring up into the sky and letting his cigarette hang from between his lips again. Hosea had said something like that. ‘A real family’. No reason he couldn’t give Hosea what he wanted, with a little creativity. And he could do it a lot faster than Bessie could, with the proper motivation.

He grinned, patting the Duke’s neck and guiding him back towards town. He hadn’t been gone that long, and if he seemed in a good enough mood then Hosea might be too.

Except as he was riding back into town, he saw a figure leaving the hotel. Bessie, he realized, even in the dark, from her bouncing blond curls and her long night gown that could only belong to a woman – and there weren’t many of them in the frontier town to begin with.

She saw him as she stepped off the porch, pulling her shawl around her shoulders almost nervously.

“Evening, Miss Smith,” he said, keeping things perfectly pleasant - though it was easy to picture what she might have been doing at the hotel.

There to  _ comfort _ Hosea. Hosea, who’d still been hard and ready when Dutch had left him. And then sweet, innocent little Bessie the shop girl had showed her pretty little face in her thin little night gown. How could a man say no to that?

Then again, Hosea  _ cared _ . Maybe he’d been a well behaved little angel himself. Maybe.

“Evening, Mr. Chambers,” Bessie said, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, looking him up and down. “Mr. Carmichael wasn’t sure if you’d be back. He was worried.”

Nice of Hosea to consider his feelings.

“Well, he needn’t have worried. As you can see, I am quite alright. A short ride in the evening is an excellent way to clear one’s head, I highly recommend it,” Dutch said, tying off the Duke and approaching her, even as she took a step away. Not a noticeable step. It was polite and small enough that it almost felt like a dance. A circle around him to stay at a safe distance in the dark. “Did he ask you yet?”

Bessie paled, noticeable even in the dark. “Beg your pardon?”

“Did. He. Ask,” Dutch articulated, tipping his hat back. “He was making inquiries with your pa. I thought he might have brought them to your attention.”

Bessie’s look narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest, on the defensive. “Well, yes, then, he did ask.”

“Oh?”

She frowned, if possible, even harder. Oddly, Dutch thought she looked more beautiful angry. Like a feral she-lion contemplating ripping his head off. Not wanting to be trifled with. His brain played with the possibilities, if she did come along. It was one thing to throw a punch at an angry man, but in society it was impolite to disagree with an upright and fashionable woman. Especially a beautiful one, who someone might think an extra layer of politeness could lead to having one’s pecker pulled, as it were.

Far from society, there might be liabilities there. But as they came closer to Chicago…

“I need to think about it,” Bessie said, pulling Dutch back into the moment, and making him frown in return.

“Of course, of course,” he said, when she gave him a puzzled look. “A big decision in any young woman’s life.”

“And are you going to tell me not to? Or that I should so that you two can cover up… whatever horrible thing you’re planning to do here?” Bessie said, circling further so that Dutch had his back to the hotel and she had her back towards the general store.

An easy way to make a quick escape on a crowded street. Dutch could respect that.

“Or, you could leave with us. I’m a reasonable man, Miss Smith,” Dutch said, and the very suggestion seemed to only surprise her more, her delicate eyebrows raised in shock. “Oh, do not look at me as though I am your enemy. I had my reasons for worrying about Hosea getting closer to you, I’m sure you understand my position. We’re on a hanging offense, I’m sure you’re a smart enough girl to know that now. Why wouldn’t I believe that you would tell your Sheriff what you know and damn us both? But if you’re considering Hosea, that means you’re considering what his life means.”

“And what  _ does _ that mean?” Bessie asked, riding the line between hostility and curiosity. Good.

Curiosity meant she was paying attention.

“It means I lived on a frontier town like this one, before I left home. Before I realized that  _ safety _ and  _ prison _ aren’t all that far off. You can keep a song bird in a cage, Miss Smith, but eventually it will stop singing, wither, and die. Not because it lacks for food or water, but because it lacks for freedom.” Dutch pointed back at the town that stretched out around them. “Society, civilization, it will keep you  _ safe _ , but your wings will shrink, and they will wither as your beautiful feathers fall off, and that safety loses its taste as the rules of the world gather in around you. If you don’t marry Hosea, you very likely  _ will _ be someone’s wife…” He stepped closer, and this time she didn’t step away, instead looking at the ground, as though he was holding the thread of her shawl and slowly unraveling it for her.

She must have thought this already, he realized. She must have known she was smarter than the men in the town that he and Hosea had been running circles around ever since they arrived. A smart bird who realized it had already been stuffed into a bird cage, beside a window where she could see freedom.

“Maybe some man who’ll beat you, or look down on you and think you don’t have the know-how to keep what should be  _ yours _ . What your daddy built, that  _ should _ be yours. They’ll take your freedom from you. Every inch of it.” Dutch smiled, spreading his arms. “Your cage door is open, Miss Smith. I think you can fly, and Hosea believes it even more than I do. And Hosea, you’ve gotta know this by now, Hosea will never be able to stand still. Even if he tricks himself into believing it, you can either move with him, as far as freedom takes you, or you can stay still like a rock as he passes you by.”

Bessie looked up at him from under her messy curls, her mouth set in a hard frown. “That’s an awful lot of metaphors you can cram into a speech, Mr. Chambers. You ought to consider writing these things down before you spout them off.”

Not a bad idea, but that stung a bit.

“That does not mean that I am not right,” Dutch said, tossing his cigarette away. “You and I are more similar than I first thought,” a lie, but like every good lie it had a grain of truth, “We can both belong with him. Not the worst way to live.”

“And if I still think it is? The worst way to live,” Bessie said, her brows knitted together like she was trying to find some sense in what he’d said to her.

“Well, then I’d start thinking about two things, if you do love my partner as much as I believe you do.” Dutch held up one finger. “One, I’d start thinking about how you can make sure he escapes from here without a noose around his neck. And two,” he held up another finger, “I’d start polishing up on your ability to act. After all, there’s recompense in a woman who is tricked into marrying a man under false pretenses. The shame will follow you either way, but…” he shrugged, noncommittal. “Better to be perceived as a victim than an accomplice. If you believe you can continue to play a victim before these men who hold no respect for you as it is. But I think…”

He thought of what she had said to Hosea about Mr. Wilcox. Destroy him. That was what she had wanted.

“I think you ought to show these men that they underestimated you, Miss. Because Hosea knows what I know,” he said, tapping his fingers against his chest. “This is America, Miss Smith. Everyone is owed a better world here. Not the chains of the old one. You have teeth, even if you hide ‘em. And you can rip your enemies apart just as well as Hosea or I can.” He stepped up onto the porch, intending to leave her with that, but Bessie wanted the last word.

“Why are you saying all of this to me?” she said, shaking her head, rubbing her fingers together like she was touching the very words he had spoken to her.

Dutch considered. ‘I know you’ll make Hosea happy’ wasn’t the right thing to say. He would make Hosea happy. Give Hosea his cozy family he was missing in his life. Show him freedom in the world. He had faith that he would see things through. Not faith in any higher power - he did not need that.

He only needed faith in himself. Faith in Hosea. He could take control of himself and his desires, and grip them with an iron fist. He was no wild animal enslaved by his desires, like the jealousy that he  _ knew _ he could shake off. He didn’t need Bessie gone. He just needed the rules gone.

The only thing that made Bessie a problem was society’s rules that said he couldn’t have Hosea. He just needed to make sure Hosea and Bessie understood that.

“I know you believe us to be cowards and thieves, though perhaps moreso me than Hosea, but this is about more than money. This world is unkind. And these people?” He gestured again at the town. “They’re trapped-”

“In the cage, yes. I understood the gist of all that,” Bessie said, shaking her head. “But why  _ me _ ?”

“Why, Miss Bessie, I thought I was clear on that as well.” Dutch chuckled. “You figured us out, but curiosity has gotten the better of you. You are tempted by freedom, as Hosea and I were. I am simply helping you to see it.”

He opted to not give her a chance to follow up, walking back inside and feeling his good mood return to him from earlier in the night, when he and Hosea had been stringing the idiots along. He could get things under control again. Bring Hosea and Bessie  _ both _ to heel.

Stepping inside, he observed the bottles that had been left strewn about, and Mr. Wilcox still passed out on his fainting couch, snoring loudly with his head buried in the pillow and a line of drool and perhaps a little vomit lingering on it. A vile example of a man he’d be happy to be rid of.

“Pleasant dreams, Mr. Wilcox,” Dutch said, heading back upstairs to his shared room with Hosea, where the lamp was still lit.

Hosea looked up from his position on his bed where he’d been reading the paper, seeming surprised that Dutch had re-emerged at all. “Dutch…? There you are. Didn’t think I’d be seeing you until tomorrow, after…”

“No need to sit up, Hosea. No need at all,” Dutch said, sitting on his bed and pulling off his boots. “As I said, I needed some time to clear my head and that was all. What we have said and done is enough for me, for now. And if time is what you need, I will give it to you.”

Hosea raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “You’re certain?”

“Of course, when am I not?” Dutch asked, setting his hat aside and settling into bed. “When your Miss Bessie accepts your proposal, and she will accept, I have no doubt, you should start making preparations for your forthcoming nuptials. I will handle obtaining the bank coach. I have some ideas on that, if you can handle holding down the fort here.”

“Sure thing, Dutch.” Hosea nodded, reaching out to snuff the lamp, though he hesitated a moment. “Anything I should know about?”

“Do not worry about the details. I will handle it. I will have to go closer to Chicago than New Surry would take me, I think, but it will keep us safer here,” Dutch said, nodding his head thoughtfully. “Ever thought about robbing a bank, Hosea?”

Hosea made a ‘pfft’ sound, shaking his head and turning down the lamp. “Seems a bit outside our usual conning. But I can imagine the appeal.”

“As can I, as can I… Lots of things you can do with a bank coach, once you have one.” Dutch said, closing his eyes in the dark and pressing his fingers to his lips where he could pretend, just for the moment, that Hosea had kissed him goodnight.

In time. All in time.

“Lots of things you can do, once you have faith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate everyone's patience for this one. Once again, time and space has proven to be an issue for me during the pandemic (and also in general).
> 
> Stay safe everyone!
> 
> Special thanks to my Beta, Risk, who I try and keep entertained with Dutch using women's liberation as a justification for getting laid.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Just want to chat? Find me on Twitter @TheJudgeCoffee, or, for reasons I don't understand, STILL ON TUMBLR at http://youredgedadsareshowing.tumblr.com


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